Cf. Eleanor H. Jorden and A. Ronald Walton, “Truly Foreign Languages: Instructional Challenges” in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March 1987.
2 The two introductory units take up numbers, personal names, and place names and are designed to familiarize learners with the basic strokes of characters while they (in many cases) are learning pronunciation and romanization from Basic Mandarin Chinese Speaking & Listening. One advantage of numbers and names, besides their obvious utility, is that they can occur by themselves and require no grammatical knowledge to be understood.
3 On the rare occasions when there were no appropriate characters in the Basic Conversation of the corresponding lesson, characters from the Supplementary Vocabulary of the corresponding lesson were chosen, or characters from previous lessons where there had been an excess of appropriate characters.
4 Be aware that, when reading characters out loud, Chinese readers have a tendency to give syllables their full tone, so that some syllables that are neutral tone in conversation are pronounced with a full tone instead (e.g., 朋友 “friend” may be read off as péngyŏu instead of péngyou). Our advice in such cases is to follow the pronunciation of your teacher, mentor, or the audio recording that accompanies this text.
5 The main exception to this is Unit A, which is exactly the same in simplified and traditional characters; therefore, it is presented only once, in horizontal format. Although in this book simplified characters are presented in horizontal format and traditional characters are usually presented in vertical format, which reflects general practice in the Chinese “real world,” learners should be aware that simplified characters can also be printed or handwritten in vertical format, and traditional characters can also be (and not infrequently are) printed or handwritten in horizontal format.
Abbreviations
Word Classes*
| [A] | Adverb |
| [AT] | Attributive |
| [AV] | Auxiliary Verb |
| [BF] | Bound Form |
| [CJ] | Conjunction |
| [CV] | Coverb |
| [EV] | Equative Verb |
| [EX] | Expression |
| [I] | Interjection |
| [IE] | Idiomatic Expression |
| [L] | Localizer |
| [M] | Measure |
| [MA] | Moveable Adverb |
| [N] | Noun |
| [NU] | Number |
| [P] | Particle |
| [PH] | Phrase |
| [PR] | Pronoun |
| [PT] | Pattern |
| [PV] | Postverb |
| [PW] | Place Word |
| [QW] | Question Word |
| [RC] | Resultative Compound |
| [RE] | Resultative Ending |
| [SN] | Surname |
| [SP] | Specifier |
| [SV] | Stative Verb |
| [TW] | Time Word |
| [V] | Verb |
| [VO] | Verb-Object Compound |
Other Abbreviations and Symbols
| (B) | Beijing |
| (T) | Taipei |
| lit. | literally |
| * | (indicates that what follows is incorrect) |
| / | (separates alternate forms) |
* For explanations of the above word classes, see the section on “Word Classes of Spoken Chinese” at the end of the accompanying volume, Basic Mandarin Chinese Speaking & Listening.
Classroom Expressions
Use of the following classroom expressions, along with the Classroom Expressions in the companion volume Basic Mandarin Chinese Speaking & Listening, will allow most classes to be run entirely or almost entirely in Chinese. By working with the audio disc, learn how to understand these expressions when you hear them; you needn’t learn how to use them yourself just yet. Later on you should also become familiar with the Chinese expressions in the Table of Chinese Punctuation Marks (see the disc).
1. 现在我们听写｡ ( 現在我們聽寫。)
Xiànzài wŏmen tīngxiĕ. Now we have a dictation quiz.
2. 请你念课文｡ ( 請你念課文。)
Qĭng nĭ niàn kèwén. Please read the text out loud.
3. 请你再念一遍｡ ( 請你再念一遍。)
Qĭng nĭ zài niàn yíbiàn. Please read it again.
4. 这个字怎么念？( 這個字怎麼念？)
Zhèige zì zĕnme niàn? How do you pronounce this character?
5. 这个字怎么写？( 這個字怎麼寫？)
Zhèige zì zĕnme xiĕ? How do you write this character?
6. 请你再写一遍｡ ( 請你再寫一遍。)
Qĭng nĭ zài xiĕ yíbiàn. Please write it again.
7. 请注意笔顺｡ ( 請注意筆順。)
Qĭng zhùyì bĭshùn. Please pay attention to stroke order.
8. 这个字的部首是什么？( 這個字的部首是什麼？)
Zhèige zìde bùshŏu shi shénme? What is this character’s radical?
9. 这个字的声符是什么？( 這個字的聲符是什麼？)
Zhèige zìde shēngfú shi shénme? What is this character’s phonetic?
10. 这是简体字，那是繁体字｡ ( 這是簡體字，那是繁體字。)
Zhè shi jiăntĭzì, nà shi fántĭzì. These are simplified characters, those are traditional characters.
11. 请你翻译｡ ( 請你翻譯。)
Qĭng nĭ fānyì. Please translate.
12. 请你们把练习给我｡ ( 請你們把練習給我。)
Qĭng nĭmen bă liànxí gĕi wŏ. Please you all give me the exercise.
UNIT A
Numbers, Surnames, Personal Names, and Place Names
COMMUNICATIVE OBJECTIVES
Once you’ve mastered this unit, you’ll be able to use Chinese to read and write:
1. The basic numbers from 1 to 10.
2. Telephone numbers.
3. Several common surnames: “He,” “Li,”