he main goal of the first ten lessons is learn pronunciation.

Using a phonetic
representation, instead of characters, makes this easier to achieve. In
addition to pronunciation, learning pinyin has other benefits as well: such as
Looking up words in a dictionary and typing Chinese characters on a
keyboard or mobile phone

Tones

Mandarin has only 409 distinct syllables. Compared to more than 5000
English syllables, this is a small number. Once you master these 409 sounds,
you can pronounce any word in Mandarin.

Mandarin is a tonal language, where “tone” is actually a change in pitch that

occurs during the pronunciation of a syllable. Tone marks are placed above
the vowels as guide to pronunciation. The table below illustrates how tones
change the meaning of words that sound like “ma”.

Tones are not optional. If you use the wrong tone, you said the wrong word.
Missing the tone generally confuses your listener. So, unless you have a
musician’s ear, it is a good idea to memorize the tone when you learn a word.

Some words will take a different tone depending on the tone of the word that
follows. This is called tone change, or “spoken tone”. There are just three
types of tone change, which will be explained later. Standard text books do
not show spoken tone. However this courseware does, in order to make the
expected pronunciation more clear.

Tone Number Mark Pitch Meaning

1st ma1 mā high level Mother 妈
2nd ma2 má rising Numb 麻
falling
3rd ma3 mǎ Horse 马
then rising
4th ma4 mà falling Scold 骂

Neutral ma ma unstressed Question 吗

 4 tones: mā má mǎ mà
 Mother scolds a horse: māma mà mǎ
 Click on bolded pinyin in the chart to hear the differences.
Example Dialog
Note: In the first column of the table below 王 (wáng) and 张 (zhāng) are
common family names in China.

1) How are
you?
How
Ní hǎo
王 你好吗？ are
ma?
you?
I am
Wǒ
fine
张 hén 我很好。
(very
hǎo.
good).
2) And
you?
Nǐ Are
王 máng 你忙吗？ you
ma? busy?
I’m
Wǒ not
bù busy,
张 我不忙,你呢？
máng, how
nǐ ne? about
you?
I am
Wó yě
also
王 bù 我也不忙。
not
máng.
busy.
3) Good
Morning
Zǎoshang Good
王 早上好！
hǎo！ morning！
张 Zǎo！ 早！ Morning！
Nǐ máng Are you
王 你忙吗？
ma? busy?
Wó hěn I am very
张 我很忙,你呢？
máng, nǐ busy, and
 ne? you?
Wǒ
I am also
王 yé hěn 我也很忙。
very busy.
máng.
张 Zàijiàn. 再见。 Bye.

王 Zàijiàn. 再见。 Bye.

Vocabulary
Pinyin Chinese English
Pronoun,
second
nǐ 你 you
person
singular.
Adjective,
generally
hǎo 好 good indicating a
positive
quality.
A greeting,
ní hǎo 你好 hello not a
question.
Pronoun,
first person
singular.
Note: wǒ
wǒ 我 I or me can be used
as a subject
(“I”) or an
object
(“me”).
Adverb of
hěn 很 very
degree
Particle,
used to
request
ma 吗 confirmation.
Similar to a
rising tone in
English.
ne 呢 what Particle,
 about used to
..? request
more
information.
Adverb,
yě 也 also expressing
similarity
máng 忙 busy Adjective
Adverb of
bù 不 not
negation
Noun, early
zǎoshang 早上 morning
in the day
Noun, late in
wǎnshang 晚上 evening
the day
Expression,
taken
separately
good the
zàijiàn 再见
bye characters
mean
“again”
“meet”.
Tone Change
When two 3rd tone syllables occur in sequence, the first syllable is usually
pronounced with a 2nd tone. This makes the sentence easier to say. For
example “nǐ hǎo” (the written form) is normally pronounced “ní hǎo” (the
spoken form). Unfortunately, all books published with pinyin use the written
form and let you figure out how to say it. In contrast, this courseware will
display the spoken form at all times, so you don’t have to guess about the
pronunciation.

Grammar Patterns
Grammar is the patterns of a language. Although every pattern has
exceptions, recognizing the language patterns improves our feel for the
language.

Sentences
All the sentences in this lesson describe conditions: good, bad, busy, not
busy. It is interesting to note that they do not contain any form of the verb “is”.
 Mandarin does have a verb that is similar to “is”, which we will learn in the 3rd
lesson. The table below illustrates the structure of sentences that express
conditions.

adjective
subject phrase meaning
I am
Wǒ hén hǎo. very
good
You are
Nǐ bù máng
not busy

Particles
Particles, like ma and ne in Chinese, are structural words. They are used
to indicate the purpose of a sentence (such as question or statement) without
effecting the content.
 When ma occurs at the end of a sentence it is asking for confirmation. For
example “Nǐ máng” is the statement “You are busy”, while “Nǐ máng ma?”
asks for confirmation of that statement.
 When ne occurs at the end of a sentence it indicates a more open ended
question. For example “nǐ ne?” means “what about you?” and “wǒ ne”
means “what about me?”.
Seeking Confirmation
We learned two sentences that seek confirmation in this lesson: “Nǐ máng
ma?” and “Ní hǎo ma?”. All confirmation questions have the same structure: a
statement, followed by “ma”. This is much easier than English, where we
change the order of subject and verb.
Statement “?” Answer
Wǒ máng ma? Máng
Ní hǎo ma? Hén hǎo
Nǐ máng ma? Máng
Confirming the question also differs from English. Chinese does not have a
simple “yes” and “no”;. Instead, the Chinese speaker uses the verb or adverb
of the sentence in its positive or negative form.

Here are some examples of answers to “Nǐ máng ma?”.

 Wó hěn máng. – affirmative response
 Bù máng. – affirmative response
 Wǒ máng. – omitting any adverbs
 Máng. – brief and succinct
After answering you can use “Nǐ ne?” to return the question. And, if the
second answer is consistent with the first you can add yě to the response
 Wǒ yé hěn máng.
 Yé hěn máng.
 Wó yě máng.

Statement “?” Answer

Wǒ
Wó hěn nǐ
yé hěn
máng, ne?
máng
Wó yě
nǐ
Bù máng, bù
ne?
máng
nǐ Wó yě
Máng,
ne? máng
Greetings
Just as in English, a response to a greeting is usually the same as the
greeting.

Greeting Response
Zǎo Zǎo
Ní hǎo. Ní hǎo.
Zǎoshang Zǎoshang
hǎo. hǎo.
Wǎnshang Wǎnshang
hǎo. hǎo.
Zàijiàn. Zàijiàn.
Resources
There are two types of flashcards to choose from. Each type has two sides.
Both types will provide valuable practice opportunities.

 Pinyin to English Flashcards will display the pinyin first and give you the
opportunity to remember the English meaning.
 Chinese to English Flashcards will display a Chinese character first. When
the character is displayed you will hear the word pronounced. Don’t worry
about reading the character, your job is to listen to the word and remember
the pinyin and tone mark.