Learn Chinese: Flash Cards for Beginners. Book 3

By Matthew Driver

This flash-card style book has been designed as an introduction for beginners wanting to learn Chinese. It introduces a range of Chinese words and phrases, across a variety of everyday topics.

This is the third book in the series, building on the words and phrases introduced in Learn Chinese – Flash Cards for Beginners, and Learn Chinese - Flash Cards for Beginners (Book 2). In this title you will be introduced to more vocabulary as well as a range of useful everyday phrases.

These flash cards show the Chinese, English and Pinyin expressions of each word. The Chinese character in each case is displayed first, followed by a card displaying the English translation and Pinyin pronunciation.

There is also a useful guide to reading and pronouncing pinyin.

Over 250 flash card style pages covering the following topics: Reading pinyin; Verbs; Time; Colour; Descriptions; Food & Drink; Sport & Leisure; I.. ; Instructions; Questions; Useful Phrases; and Around the House.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew Driver
• Release date: Mar 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465808257

Book preview

Pinyin is a method used to represent Chinese characters and express them using the alphabet. There are a number of systems used to express Mandarin, but of these Pinyin is the most common and widely used. An understanding of Pinyin makes it possible to pronounce any word in Mandarin. Although Pinyin uses the Roman alphabet, many of the letters are not expressed with the same sounds as English.

Initials and Finals

Words in pinyin use a set of 21 sounds representing the beginning of the word called initials, and a set of 37 sounds representing the end of the word called finals. When combined these form about 420 different sounds.

For example: Where the word in pinyin is huá, in this word the letter ‘h’ is the initial and ‘uá’ is the final. Words can further be combined to form compound words. An example of this would be the word for sun in Chinese, which is tài yang, whereby both elements of the word are created from an initial and a final.

Tones

Words in Mandarin that have the same pronunciation can have different meanings depending on how the word is spoken and the tone used. The tone of a word describes how the pitch of the speaker’s voice should change as the word is spoken. There are four different tones in Mandarin which are represented in Pinyin using marks above the word. Tones are read from right to left across the top of the word.

The straight line over the word indicates that the word should be said with a flat and unchanging high tone. (Known as the 1st tone) (Meaning - Mother).

The mark going up above the word indicates the word should be said in a rising tone. (Known as the 2nd tone) (Meaning - To bother).

This mark above the word indicates that the word should be said with a falling tone and then a rising tone. (Known as the 3rd tone) (Meaning - Horse).

The down mark above the word indicates that the word should be said with a falling tone. (Known as the 4th tone)