Talk:Chinese (Mandarin)/Lesson 1

Question Words Section - Last Yellow Paragraph
I just added this blob as well as the brackets in examples 1 and 3 right above. Feel free to remove or change it... I believe this generalization is correct but I am not that fluent.

Is 他们 equivalent to 她们?
In the 'sentences using shi' section, it's replaced, without any explanation. Is it like French, with the ils/elles versions of 'they?'
 * It is like the French ils/elles; 他们 means a group of men or of men and women, while 她们 means a group of women exclusively. The example sentence is refering to a group of women.

redundancy
when the traditional and simplified characters are the same, i'll remove it to save space.
 * Thanks for your help :) Now that lesson 1 is more or less done... time for lesson 2 I guess. How to get more people to participate though? -- Ran 06:56, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I would suggest advertising on the Chinese wikipedia.. or do a chinese lessons / english lessons exchange.
 * I did a bit of advertising by putting the   template tag in several Wikipedia articles like standard Mandarin, Beijing dialect, Chinese language and Mandarin and then redirects to the Chinese Wikibook contents page. --Everlong 04:53, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I've removed the Beijing dialect link... (sorry.... but it seemed a bit far-fetched to me...) Thanks for the other three, though. ;) -- Ran 05:37, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

'我叫艾美' is not a good example

 * In English, you can say 'I'm Called duke'.It, however, means '我被叫作"公爵"' instead of '我叫公爵'.
 * Actually, '叫' is not a common use here.You can consider it as 'am'(or 'be') in English.
 * in chinese,sb. + be + ppl. = sb. + 被 + verb.'被' is the preposition here(of course,you can regard it as the helping verb)
 * Ergo, this example would lead you to the wrong road in learning Chinese.
 * in the end, sorry about my lame English^_^(and I would appreciate it if you could point out my mistake^_^)--Zhouxiao 12:21, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * i wouldnt worry too much about it. the main thing is to get learners to say 我叫王 rather than 我是王, right? Nateji77 07:01, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with Zhouxiao.

--Dingar 01:55, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
 * yeah, im a chinese and i dont agree with what Zhouxiao babbled neither, in the least KonW (talk) 14:39, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Archived Discussion
|19 Mar 2005

Tradtional and simplified characters
In the vocaublary lists, shouldn't the tradional and simplified words be in different columns to make it easier? -Pichu826 06:02, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I considered that when I made the original layout for the vocabulary, but I still think the one-column design is best and least distracting. It allows the closest side-by-side comparison without making a mostly empty column that would interfere with straight-across readings. --Everlong 04:43, 2 Jul 2005 (UTC)

I added "when different" just to add a little clarity (Yes, might be obvious, but this is lesson one of a language most have little to no familiarity with. It's also unclear if the gender differences in the character for "ni" are only present in Traditional Chinese.  Also, with other pronouns.  Maybe that needs to be added separately as a lesson section. 67.141.84.9 00:46, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Rearranging of the dialogues
I'm starting to learn Chinese, and I believe it would be helpfull to me (and very likely to others) if a dialogue was presented with all the translations; that is: dialogue 1 (simplified+traditional + pinyin + english) ; dialogue 2 (simplified+traditional+pinyin+english)

That way, it is easier to find what every character means, without having to scroll continually up and down.

I don't know how to change that myself, but I think that would be an improvement to an otherwise excellent page.

Greetings, --80.58.3.172 10:11, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

SVO/S是O
in "我是中国人" etc, is zhongguorenreally an object? it's going back a long time to 7th grade english, but i thought it was a prepositional noun phrase or something similar, not an object (a direct object would take an accusative pronoun, him/her/us, while a prepositional noun would take a nominative, he/she/we, iirc). Nateji77 06:57, 7 October 2005 (UTC)


 * You're right, Nateji. "Be" is an exception to the standard SVO-rule. It's actually a complement. I think it's fair to say that the analysis is valid for Chinese as well, since "是" is used as a copula in almost the exact same manner as in English.
 * Peter Isotalo 15:06, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

你vs.妳
why does owen say 你 instead of 妳 in the traditional chinese dialogue in reference to ginny? Nateji77 07:05, 7 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing that out. An oversight in the writing, sorry. Now corrected. --Everlong 08:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure "妳" is bogus, not commonly used in modern Chinese. Only one of the four Chinese dictionaries at hand lists it, and I don't recall ever seeing it in any textbook (just double-checked a couple). And my Chinese teacher, who is a native speaker, said she thinks it may have been used in classical Chinese but not in modern Chinese. So lesson 1 should show 你, not 妳. --Yakowenko (talk) 03:35, 17 March 2009 (UTC)


 * your teacher is no doubt a mainlander ,cause ppl in Taiwan(or maybe Hongkong Macau still now)use 妳.KonW (talk) 14:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Proper Nouns
I'm new to editing wiki stuff, sorry if I make stupid mistakes... But... In the Proper nouns section, I think it would look better if the country names had their traditional writings inside parentheses, as stated near the subtitle... E.g.: "中国 (中國)".


 * You're right. When I first made up the vocab list I thought it would look cluttered to list the alternate writing for one character so manyt times, but it's better to have a consistent format all the way through. Made the changes to bring it in line with the rest of the vocabulary.  --Everlong 08:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

New Vocabulary Table
I think that we should use wikitables for the vocabulary lists. The current vocab lists are too cluttered and are hard to read. We could make a clearer division between simplified and traditional characters by putting them into separate colums, rather than parenthases. Also, this is easier to show masculine and feminine types of characters without putting them into parenthases, as those changes could be mistaken for traditional characters. I hope everyone understands what I mean.

Geoking66 07:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I personally think the current arrangement is better than it would be using the wikitable template. I originally tablified the vocab (before it was a bulleted list), and put a lot of thought into its construction.


 * The wikitable change took away the vocab numbering, decreased the contrast from the background (especially in printed versions), and spread columns apart due to the wide traditional column. I had debated having traditional in it's own column when I first made the vocab table, but ultimately decided that it would be best close to the simplified (making comparisons easier), and not taking up a whole column which also separates the characters from the pinyin and meaning columns. It's better to have them in closer proximity than that.


 * About possible masculine/feminine confusion, the current setup is technically correct, as the character 妳 does not exist in simplified, so the m./f. distinction only exists in the traditional, thus it was put in parentheses. I agree it's maybe a little more confusing than it needs to be, so I'll add a note of warning later on. In any case, no more sexed personal pronouns have to be introduced and masculine/feminine doesn't exist in Chinese, so the issue only comes up within the first lesson. So I don't think the m./f. issue should be used as a reason for effecting a change that impacts the design of vocab presentation for every lesson (someday there will be more than two :).


 * Believe me that I understand your argument and had debated myself over the very same design decision. It's still debatable, granted, but from my personal experience using several Chinese textbooks, and from trying to learn traditional while using a simplified-only text, this setup would most appeal to me as a learner.
 * --Everlong 16:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Audio template needed
The audio template has to be used in some form of another. It's not so much an issue of providing a help link, but rather that the license information has to be easily available to make sure people can easily check that that files are indeed under a free license, and to make it easier to show where to upload replacement files by native speakers.

Peter Isotalo 10:40, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I know, I'm sorry for not coming up with a replacement for the Info links right away, but I just felt using the Audio template made the vocab list look really cluttered. My thoughts for how to make a better format include:
 * adding miniature pictures alongside the pinyin sort of like '' that leads to the file info.
 * making a small speaker icon ([[Image:Gnome-speakernotes.png|15px|(Play this file)]]) that's the Media link while the pinyin is the info page link.
 * a separate page with all the sound file Info links, sort of like the Stroke Order page
 * or a new "Listen" column on the right side that shows "[[Image:Gnome-speakernotes.png|15px|(Play this file)]] (info) " for every word
 * Everlong 17:48, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I just wanted to say...
THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!! (please erase if it's inappopriate)

Individual word meanings needed
I think it would be very useful in this and following lessons for learners to be able to see the meanings of the individual words that make up phrases.

For example, the meaning of "Nǐ hǎo" is provided as "Hello." This is fine, but it doesn't let the learner know that "nǐ" means "you" and "hǎo" means good and that when saying "hello" in Chinese, one is saying literally "you good."

Providing this information allows the learner to learn the meaning of individual words in a meaningful context of the phrase or sentence being learned. And it also lets the learner get a feeling for the syntax of Mandarin.

I think this could best be done by abandoning the format currently used which divides things up into four quadrants of Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Pinyin and English and instead using multiple lines of information, something like this:

Simplified Characters Traditional Characters Pinyin English word meanings English phrase/sentence meaning.

金 妮: 你 好. 金 妮: 你 好. Jīnní: Nǐ hǎo Ginny: you good Ginny: Hello. Gary Cziko 14:43, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. I think we should explain the literal meanings of words, the actual meanings, and how the literal meaning is related to the actual meaning. For example, 哪国人 literally is "Which nation person?", it means "Which nationality?", so it is like saying "Person of which nation?" or "Which nation's person?". I'm learning Chinese now and I find making connections like this to be very helpful. For example, with thinking of 你好 as "you good", it made it easier for me to understand that I could also say "老师好" or "您好". Tojo940 (talk) 22:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

By Lie-Hap-Po
妳is a non standard character and should not be used.

Yes, agreed.

Names could be localized
Since this is a Chinese course, names should be better as Chinese names. I proposal to use 張三 instead of 金妮 and 李四 instead of 歐文 here. The two names are like those foo and bar in English, very well suitable for this case. 221.219.97.5 17:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that the choice of names should be rethought. There are enough basic words I need to master as a beginner in Chinese, learning how to write Ginny is pretty low on my priority list. I've never even come across a Ginny in the US, it would be much more worthwhile learning names that I am actually likely to come across in Chinese. AmRadioHed 20:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Moving dialogue 2 to second lesson
I think one dialoge is enough for the first lesson. The second lesson would make and ideal "Lesson Two". Any objections to me moing it?86.137.109.142 11:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Is 麽 a character in Traditional Chinese?
Hi,

I'm using this book to learn some Mandarin. I've never studied it before, what is written here is the first thing I'm learning about it. I'm also trying to reproduce the characters I see with a word processor using Pinyin, and I had problems inserting the "me" in "shénme". The text says that the traditional character for it is 麽, but Wiktionary http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%BA%BC says that this symbol is simplified Chinese, ad the traditional symbol for it is 麼. In fact, using the Pinyin input method UIM-Pinyin-BIG5 with SCIM under Linux, I can't reproduce the first character, but only the second.

I would like to thank the authors for this great work! :-) 83.187.196.123 18:08, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * If you look at the Wiktionary for http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/么 then you see that two traditional forms are listed. I remember we learned the 'traditional' form when I was studying in Taiwan, but even there I saw people use the very simple form of it. My guess is that the very similar looking character is what came out after putting 麼 through the a strict interpretation of the simplification rules (you'll notice that many parts of different characters are the same, so a rule can simplify that part in all the characters it is present in). Guess it wasn't simple enough for some people. :)

什 vs. 甚
Isn't 甚麽 the traditional form of 什么 ? --Yakowenko (talk) 05:37, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * no, the traditional form is 什麽. i dont know what's the diff between 什么 and 甚么 thou.

Suggestions from a newbie
I do like this page - but as a newcomer to Chinese language I do have some suggestions.

First, there is a lot in each lesson and introducing Chinese characters so early makes everything look more difficult. My initial goal is to learn spoken Chinese to follow conversation and pinyin helps me do this. I have not tried to learn the characters as I see this as something which does not need to be attempted yet. The examples by exercise 2 have dropped pinyin altogether -I would like to use pinyin for a while.

I would find it useful to have practice drills in pinyin - something you could work on together with a Chinese speaker using VOIP. It is repetition and speaking which makes you at ease in a language. Once you are able to introduce yourself,count, construct simple sentences, and ask basic questions, maybe then it is time for characters.

What do others think? Herne (talk) 10:36, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Confusion about tones
The tones page says the 3rd tone changes when preceding other tones. In this lesson, hǎo sounds like a half-third tone but it's at the end of a sentence. Also, ní in Jīnní and wén in Ōuwén are written as 2nd tone, but sound low. Shén in Shénme sounds low as well. What am I missing? --ZBrisk (talk) 22:14, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Question With 是
In S+是+O and S+不+是+O, does the 是 act like a linking verb (am, is, are, was, were)? --ThePCKid (discuss • contribs) 22:10, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Pinyin Hyperlinks To Wiktionary
Seems to me they range from broken (relatively good) to misleading (bad). They should be erased. 79.176.136.189 (discuss) 21:57, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Someone please check the last edit
114.197.144.141 changed 叫 to 是 in the dialogue 1, but didn't change jiào to shì. (Note: I am a beginner in Chinese.)

Artemka373 (discuss • contribs) 19:33, 20 June 2016 (UTC)