Chinese Course - Lesson 1: Introduction

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China is an immense country, 17.5 times the size of France! Its population is very diverse: 56 ethnic groups including the Han, the 'pure-blooded' Chinese, who are the majority ethnic group. Each ethnic group has its own language (except the Hui, but that's another story) and often with many variations ranging from accent to dialect.

The Chinese have several major dialects, but each has such internal differences that people don't always understand each other from one city to another, even within the same dialect group. To cope with such diversity, a common language is needed: Mandarin. In Chinese, it is called Pǔtōnghuà (pronounced: pou tongue rue), literally 'common communication language,' the common language.

The online Chinese courses on chine-culture.com are Mandarin Chinese courses.

Spoken language and writing

Chinese has a characteristic that makes it both charming and difficult: writing does not indicate (or rarely and never precisely) pronunciation. So one can learn to speak Chinese without knowing how to read or write it. This course aims to teach both speaking and writing Chinese, but some vocabulary characters are not required to be learned, so that writing does not hinder language learning.

Phonetic transcription: pinyin

Since Chinese writing does not indicate pronunciation, a phonetic transcription is needed. Since the 1950s, the official Chinese phonetic transcription is the pinyin, a word that means 'spell the sounds' in Chinese. Before the 1950s, each country had its own transcription. This is why old books about China give transcriptions of Chinese words that do not correspond to pinyin. For example, when talking about the homeland of Confucius, the old French transcription wrote 'lou' because the word is pronounced like 'lou' in French. In pinyin, this word is written 'lu' because the 'u' is pronounced like 'ou' in French (but sometimes also like 'u', we will see this in the next lessons). Learning all the pronunciation differences between pinyin and French would be very tedious, even impossible and completely discouraging for a beginner. It wouldn't be very useful either. This Chinese course will therefore present the differences gradually. You can always consult the summary on the page Pinyin.

The tones of pinyin

In Chinese, each character corresponds to a syllable. Chinese words are generally composed of one or two syllables, sometimes three, rarely four. Each syllable has a meaning. For example, in the word 'hello' 'nǐhǎo', 'nǐ' means 'you' and 'hǎo' means 'to be well'. To say hello in Chinese, you wish the interlocutor to be well, just as we wish a good (bon) day (jour) in French.
In Mandarin Chinese, each syllable is accented. That is, it undergoes a variation between low and high pitch. This is a difficult point for Western beginners. The perception (distinguishing by ear) and production (pronunciation) of tones is acquired through practice and usually takes several months. So don't be discouraged.

In Chinese, there are four distinct intonations, called the four tones of Chinese. These four tones are marked with accents on each syllable. A syllable may not be accented. In that case, it is called the neutral tone.

Example of the four tones + neutral tone with the syllable 'ma':

- 1st tone: mā 妈 (mama) it's the high tone or first tone
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- 2nd tone: má 麻 (hemp) it's the rising tone or second tone
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- 3rd tone: mǎ 马 (horse) it's the dipping tone or third tone
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- 4th tone: mà 骂 (scold) it's the falling tone or fourth tone
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- 5th tone: ma 吗 (question particle: placed at the end of a sentence to turn it into a question) it's the neutral tone or fifth tone. It is actually the absence of tone. It is rarely called the fifth tone. It is better to call it the neutral tone.
listen:

The tones of pinyin are marked on vowels. The choice of vowel follows the order of importance: a, o, e, u, i (unless i is before u). Example: mǎi, huā, jiā, dōu, shuō, què, suì, xiě jiǔ,....