Understanding Chinese Tones and Conversational Practice

Dear listeners , welcome to my Mandarin Chinese lessons podcast . I am your host Serge . The whole course is designed for beginners . Anyone who is interested in learning basic conversation in Chinese will find it useful . In our lessons we will con centrate on the spoken language as Chinese characters are too complex and require full time study . The structure of our lessons will be theme based . I believe that this is the best choice for travelers , business people, students or Chinese culture fans This lesson's topic is saying hello in Chinese . We will learn how to greet people in Chinese . But first , let's learn some word s . Just listen and repeat . NiHa NiHa it means hello , hi or how are you Nihao Niha Nihao Niha Nee Ha It's used to greet anyone at any time of the day . You can greet people you already know or you can greet someone you meet for the first time . So if somebody is saying to you knee ha , you should also respond niha . Nih niham is another way of saying hello in Chinese . Nihama Niha It's basically the same as Nihao except for some occasions when Niha Ma is used to greet someone you have not seen for a long time . We can translate this into English like hey long time no seed . How are you doing ? Here ma' is a question particle . This particle is added to the end of a sentence when you want to make a question for example how means good how m is it good ? It's a question Next word How to put in How to But in How to put in Howajio Bujin Hajio Bujin and it means long time no se means very Hen . Hen . Hen hop very good Hen Ha good Hen Ha Henha Yeah also also Yeah also Nina and you Ni nah and you Nina Nina Na is a particle used in elliptical questions How means good how okay Ni means you means I or me what ? What ? What ? What ? What ? Shi . Thank you See See See Please pay attention to my pronunciation s Thank you and the last word ti , which means goodbye . Tai Tian Tai Tian literally means see you again . Tai means again tien means to see, see you. Tai Tian . Okay , so that was enough, right ? Now let me explain what those numbers after each word are. Chinese is a very musical lang uage . There is no stress on a syllable like in many other languages . Instead , in Chinese they use special musical tones . Every syllable bears its own tone , which makes the syllable distinctive from other syllables . In Chinese phonetics , the minimum unit is a syllable . Words in Chinese can consist of one , two, three or four syllables . Words which consist of five or more syllables are not very common in Chinese . So there are four musical tones in Chinese and they convey differences in meaning. In my lessons I will use numbers to mark each tone . If there is no mark , then this syllable is unstressed . This is called a neutral tone . Please make sure you pronounce the tones correctly from the very beginning , as mistakes in tones can make your speech unrecognizable , and Chinese speakers will hardly understand you. This is because most Native Mandarin speakers acquired tones naturally from their childhood . So they are kind of programmed to hear only that particular tone . So it's very hard for them to step out and look at a word from a foreigner's point of view . Okay, alright, so now let's make a conversation from the words we just learned . Situation one people are greeting each other A saying Niha Person B iha Good Nihao Nihao Situation two Person A saying Long Time No C. How are you doing ? How cho ctien Nihama Ha chio Putian Niha Person B aying very good, thank you and you Hen Ha Nina Wii Henha I also'm very good Wai Han Ha Wa Yea Han Ha Tai Tai Jin Ha i jin Zai Jin let's repeat the situation too one more time Ha jo jen Niham Han Ha Si Nin Warrior Hen Ha Taien Ha Ta Ha Jo Bujin Niha Ma Hen Ha isi Nina Wa enha Taijin Ha Tai Jin Okay good job . So this is the end of our first lesson . In the next lesson, we will pay more attention to Chinese tones. So talk to you later . Bye bye.