Mandarin Monday

Welcome to the first edition of what I am calling Mandarin Monday. Jon and I want to learn some Mandarin before our trip. Our daughter will be placed with people that she doesn't know and who will sound completely different from what she has been exposed to. While we will not be fluent and will have an obvious accent, we are hoping that it will help with the transition during the first few days. Can't hurt, right? Of course there is the chance that she has been hearing Cantonese but we had to pick one.
Also, one of my biggest pet peeves is when someone travels to another country and doesn't even bother to learn a few words of the local language. Come on, everyone should at least be able to say Hello and Goodbye(which is what we will be learning this week). I have found that regardless of how bad you mispronounce something, making the effort is usually well received.

(This is probably a good time to disclose the fact that on a trip to Venice with two of my girlfriends we ended up spending $300.00 on lunch by pretending we knew what we were doing. Yes, $100.00 EACH on LUNCH!!! Oh, and there was the time I got kicked off a bus in Singapore. Obviously I am not an expert.)

To properly learn Mandarin, I am sure we should enroll in a structured class so that we can ensure that we are learning all of the nuances of the language. We are also checking out the online courses. However, right now our lives are not working like that so we are going to start with the DIY approach. I am going to learn a couple of words or phrases each week. If we do enroll in a class we will either be ahead of the game or the instructor will be horrified at what we have learned on our own. Either way, I'm jumping in.

I'm sure most of you adoptive parents may be way ahead of me on this but if you want to play along at home, I am starting out easy this week. The assignment is to use the words everyday - not just read them here.

I will present the English word, the pinyin spelling and attempt to show the pronunciation in parentheses. This will be the difficult part since Mandarin is a tonal language. There are four basic tones in modern Mandarin Chinese, and every syllable in the language is pronounced with one of those four tones (or with a neutral tone). In Mandarin, the tones are extremely important. In fact, the tones are as much a part of the syllable or word as the consonant and vowel sounds are. Chinese words that might appear identical when written in English letters, such as the word “ma,” in fact are very different depending on the tone used. “Ma” can mean “mother,” “horse,” or “scold,” depending on which tone is used. Sounds dangerous. Mom, I apologize in advance if I call you a horse.

Words For The Week
Hello - Ni Hao (Nee how)
Goodbye - Zia Jian (Tseye geean)

You can try this link to hear the pronunciation. (Depending on what you have on your computer, I can't guarantee that these links will not require you to install an application to play the file or a language pack.) It's the first and third word on the page that will come up. Click on the red rectangle.

Extra credit
1. Notice the combination of "ao" makes the "ow" sound as in the english words now or how.
2. The vowel "i" makes the long "e" sound as in the english word see. However, from what I have read this is only the case when the i comes after consanants other than z, c, s, zh, ch, sh, r.

Zia Jian for now!!

P.S. to Dad - You always have a clever way of answering the phone. I don't have to tell you what I expect to hear this week!!!