• Useful Chinese lessons

• You do not need to know any Chinese to join a China Journey with us but it certainly helps to be familiar with the basics just so that you can have the confidence to go off on adventures during free time. These useful Chinese lessons will get you started and may even get you interested to buy further commercial material.

  This page is divided into lessons. These start slowly and build your vocabulary in a structured way that should help you gain some useful phrases as well as enough understanding to form simple sentences of your own.

  We have recorded the proper pronounciation by a native Mandarin speaker so as to help you practice the all-essential spoken language. Click on the 'speaker' image in the 'Hear this' column to access the recordings.

  Please allow a few seconds for the file to load, especially the first time you use it. You must have Javascripts enabled for the sounds to work.

  Notes:

  We have tried to keep things simple.

  Ordinary brackets (...) indicate an optional word.

  Square brackets [...] indicate an implied word or grammatical clarification.

  Lesson 1 - the basics

  English phrase	Pinyin	Literal meaning	Hear this
  hello	ni hao	you good
  how are you?	ni hao ma?	you good [question]
  thank you	xie xie	thank thank
  (I) don't want [it]	(wo) bu yao	not want
  goodbye	zai jian
  excuse me (sorry)	dui bu qi

  Then two more, advanced, alternatives:

  are you well?	ni chi fan le ma	you eat rice yet
  long time no see	hao jiu bu jian	good time not see

  
  
  

  Lesson 2- personal pronouns

  English phrase	Pinyin	Literal meaning	Hear this
  I	wo
  you	ni
  he/she	ta
  we	wo men
  you	ni men
  they	ta men
  my	wo de
  your	ni de
  his/hers	ta de
  our	wo men de
  your	ni men de
  their	ta men de

  There are only three personal pronouns to learn. These are made plural with the addition of men. The possesive for takes the ending de

  
  
  

  Lesson 3 - Numbers one to ten

  English phrase	Pinyin	Literal meaning	Hear this
  one	yi
  two	er
  three	san
  four	si
  five	wu
  six	liu
  seven	qi
  eight	ba
  nine	jiu
  ten	shi
  one to ten

  It is important that you are confident with these before proceeding to the next lesson.

  
  
  

  Lesson 4 - Numbers continued

  English phrase	Pinyin	Literal meaning	Hear this
  one (the digit, such as when used in a telephone number)	yao
  couple	liang
  eleven	shi yi	ten [and] one
  twelve	shi er	ten [and] two
  twenty	er shi	two ten[s]
  thirty	san shi	three ten[s]
  sixty seven	liu shi qi	six ten[s and] seven
  eighty four	ba shi si	eight ten[s and] four
  one hundred	yi bai
  one thousand	yi qian
  two hundred	liang bai	[a] couple [of] hundred
  three hundred	san bai
  one hundred and fifty	yi bai wu	one hundred [and] five [of the next next decimal units, tens]
  one thousand five hundred	yi qian wu	one thousand [and] five [of the next next decimal units, hundreds]
  one hundred and five	yi bai ling wu	one hundred zero five [zero required for clarity]

  In many ways this system is easier. There are rules and only the two exceptions covered above.

  The biggest difference with our system is the assumption that a unit unsaid after a bigger unit is always the next unit down. Look at those last three examples and make sure you are clear how this works.

  
  
  

  Lesson 5 - Asking Questions

  English phrase	Pinyin	Literal meaning	Hear this
  do you want	yao ma	want [question]
  do you want	yao bu yao	want not want
  (Yes I) want (it)	(wo) yao	(I) want
  No I don't want it	(wo) bu yao	(I) not want

  As you can see, there are two ways of making an expression a question: add ma at the end; or have the positive and negative forms of the verb together. There are no words for 'yes' and 'no'; you form a response with either the positive or negative verb form.

  
  
  

  By request we have prepared a page of Mandarin For Airline Employees here. These useful Chinese phrases are specifically targetted at cabin crews with Chinese passengers.

  More lessons will be added over time. Bookmark this page to make it easier to keep checking back.

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• Current Comments

  2 comments so far (post your own)

  Hi Imogen
  
  Thank you for your very useful feedback. We are looking to expand the range of subjects covered here. Both topics that you mention would be of general use.

  Posted by China Journeys on Wed 21 Dec, 2011

  Hearing this spoken by a local is really cool but I really want something more useful. Are you going to cover things like buying tickets and eating

  Posted by Imogen on Wed 21 Dec, 2011

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