爸爸 bàba (daddy) the first syllable is pronounced in the fourth tone and the second syllable in the neutral tone, i.e. unstressed.
1.4.2 Tone Changes
Tones may undergo changes in actual speech (“tone sandhi”). The third tone, when followed by a first, second, fourth or neutral tone sound, loses its final rise and stops at the low pitch. Followed by another third tone sound, it becomes the second tone. This is a general rule and the notation of third tone sounds remains unchanged.
For example, in 所以 suǒyǐ (therefore, so), notation remains the third tone for both syllables, but the word is actually pronounced like suóyǐ.
Two important words 不 bù (no) and 一 yī (one) also undergo tone changes. You will find the details of their tone changes under these entries.
1.5 Syllables
1.5.1 Chinese Syllables: Distinct Units
Normally a consonant and a vowel merge to form a syllable in Chinese. Every syllable is a distinct unit in speech. Learners should say each syllable clearly and give full value to most syllables in speech. The general impression of Chinese speech, described in musical terms, is staccato rather than legato (which could be used to describe English).
1.5.2 Syllable Division Mark
As Chinese syllables are distinct units and should not be liaised with preceding or following syllables, a syllable division mark (’) is sometimes used to avoid confusion, e.g. shí’èr, píng’ān, tiān’é.
2 WRITTEN CHINESE
2.1 “Chinese characters,” a unique writing system
Chinese is not written in letters, like a, b, c, nor does it use an alphabet. Chinese is written in logograms, known as 汉字 (Hànzì) and generally referred to as “Chinese characters.” Each Chinese character is pronounced as a syllable and, with few exceptions, has distinctive meaning or meanings. Though there are tens of thousands of Chinese characters, only a couple of thousands are in frequent use – the first 1,000 Chinese characters cover about 90% of daily communication.
2.2 The composition of Chinese characters: Meaningful components
Chinese characters may be composed of parts, some of which convey certain meanings. The presence of such components gives you some clue to the meaning of characters. The ability to recognize these components is both useful and interesting. See List 1 Meaningful Character Components on page xvi.
2.3 The writing of Chinese characters
STROKES
Each Chinese character is written by a number of strokes, with the sole exception of 一 (which means “one”). The table below shows the basic strokes.
STROKE ORDER
For the character to look correct, its strokes should be written in the correct order. Knowing the order will also help you remember characters. The general rules of stroke order are as follows.
2.4 Simplified and Traditional characters
The Chinese government simplified hundreds of Chinese characters in mid-1950s by reducing the numbers of their strokes. Such simplified characters are called 简体字 jiǎntǐzì. This dictionary uses jiantizi. Traditional versions (also known as complicated characters) are still used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and they are shown where applicable, e.g.:
xué 学 Trad 學
3 VOCABULARY
3.1 Words in this Dictionary
This dictionary gives detailed description of the 5,000 words prescribed for Level 1 to Level 6 of the new chinese Proficiency Test (New HSK 新汉语水平考试 Xīn Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì), the Chinese government-sponsored, international standardized test. Over 1,000 more words are covered, to further develop learners’ vocabulary power.
3.2 The importance of chinese characters
Most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters; the component characters usually determine the meaning of words. It is widely accepted by teachers and students of Chinese that in order to understand the meaning of a word, one should first of all learn the meanings of its component characters. This dictionary treats Chinese characters as individual items and gives them clear definitions, with the exception of a very few which are not used alone in Modern Chinese.
3.3 Word-formation methods
Chinese words are very transparent, i.e. the way a word is formed tells a lot about its meaning. Therefore it is very helpful to know the ways words are formed, as it facilitates understanding of words and makes learning more interesting.
This dictionary analyzes word-formation methods of headwords, whenever it is practical to do so. We recognize five methods of word-formation.
compounding (shortened to “comp”): the components of a word are complementary to each other in meaning and are of the same status. For example:
cáifù 财富 [comp: 财 property, fortune + 富 riches] N wealth, fortune
Modification (“modif”): one component modifies the other. For example:
báitiān 白天 [modif: 白 white + 天 day] N daytime
Verb+object (“v+obj”): the word has a verb-and-object relationship. For example:
chànggē 唱歌 [v+obj: 唱 sing + 歌 song] V sing songs, sing
Verb+complementation (“v+compl”): the word has a verb-and-complement relationship, that is, the first component is a verb and the second one modifies it. For example:
kànjiàn 看见 [v+compl: 看 look + 见 see] V see, get sight of
Suffixation (“suffix”): the word contains a suffix. For example:
bēizi 杯子 [suffix: 杯 cup + 子 nominal suffix] N cup, mug, glass (只 zhī)
3.4 Definitions
In most cases English equivalents or near equivalents are given as definitions. For example:
bāngmáng 帮忙 V help, help out
For grammatical words that have no English equivalents, concise explanations are given in brackets. For example:
de 的 PARTICLE (attached to a word or phrase to indicate that it is an attribute. 的 de is normally followed by a noun.)
After the definition of a noun, the specific measure word used with the noun is shown, if it is one of headwords in the dictionary. For example:
diànnǎo 电脑 [modif: 电 electricity + 脑 brain] N computer (台 tái)
When no measure word is shown for a noun, you can use the default measure word 个 gè.
The dictionary also show antonyms after the definition of common adjectives and some nouns. For example:
gāo 高 ADJ tall, high (ANTONYMS 矮 ǎi, 低 dī)
3.5 Example Sentences
Words become really meaningful only when used in sentences. A major feature of this dictionary is the thousands of example sentences that amply illustrate the meaning and usage of words. Great attention was paid to the composition of the sentences to make sure they are
(1) idiomatic,
(2) communicatively useful, and
(3) within the controlled vocabulary of this dictionary.
These sentences are accompanied by their pinyin