Tag Archives: pinyin
More Tongue Twisters Posted by Stephen on Jun 28, 2012
Now that we’ve covered some basic tongue twisters, it’s time to ramp up the level of difficulty. Try saying these tongue twisters five times fast. See if you can get as good as Jackie Chan: 青青山上一根籐 青籐地下掛銅鈴 風吹籐動銅鈴動 風停籐停銅鈴停 qīng qīng shān shàng yī gēn téng qīng téng dǐ xià guà tóng líng fēng chuī…
Left Brain + Right Brain= Middle Language (中文) Posted by Stephen on Jul 22, 2011
Learning Mandarin Chinese or 中文 (Zhōng wén), especially as a native English speaker, is doubly difficult because you’re learning both a new phonetic system called pinyin or 拼音 (pīn yīn) and a new alphabet in the form of characters or 汉字 (Hàn zì). It becomes a lesson in duality as both right and left brain…
Learning Chinese with Pinyin Posted by sasha on Jun 6, 2011
For anyone raised on the ABCs and 1-2-3s, learning Chinese can seem to be a daunting task. During my first few weeks in Beijing, I would often stare in disbelief at newspapers, menus, and street signs while thinking to myself, “How am I ever going to understand this language?” Luckily for me, and other equally…
Working on Tones with Tongue Twisters Posted by Stephen on Oct 18, 2010
Many non-native Chinese speakers find that proper pronunciation and use of tones are the most difficult aspects of learning the language and gaining fluency. This is because there are a plethora of sounds that don’t exist in both English and Chinese, meaning you have to train your tongue for the verbal somersaults. Whether it is making…
Wingin’ It Posted by Stephen on Jul 20, 2010
Learning Mandarin Chinese, especially as a native English speaker, is doubly difficult because you’re learning both a new phonetic system (pinyin) and a new alphabet in the form of characters. It becomes a lesson in duality as both right and left brain are active when learning pictograms and their corresponding pronunciation and tones. But unlike…