开心

If you want to learn Chinese you must first learn Pinyin. Why? Let me tell you about what I have learned teaching foreigners  Chinese.

Pinyin uses the English alphabet to show you how a word in Chinese should sound. However you have to learn which sound to use, for example, the Pinyin vowel, ‘ai’, pronounced ‘eye’. It is not the same pronunciation as ‘ai’ in the word straight.

After this we talk about Pin Yin and how to use it.

Try to think about how Children first learn to speak and then to read and to write. So you must like a child when you want to learn a new language, start to speak.

Pinyin lets you know how to speak Chinese.

学习中文的第一步

学习中文一定要学好拼音，为什么？让我谈谈我教外国人学习中文的一点体会。

首先，拼音使用的是英文字母，发音与英文字母不同。外国人容易记忆字母，因此也就比较容易入门。

其次，初学汉语的人往往看到中文的复杂的书写而生畏，如何去记忆中文字呢？ 当你先记住了发音，而后再记忆字，会觉得容易得多。

试想一下，孩童都是先能说，而后再会认字，而后写字的。所以学习一种新的语言就要将自己放在孩童的位置，从说开始。拼音就是让你能学会如何说中文。

Any Chinese word is composed from a ‘sheng mu’ and a ‘yun mu’. Sheng mu is in front of yun mu, and yun mu has four tones. A different sheng mu with a yun mu, in one of the 4 tones, makes a different word.

The tones are:

m ā;      m á;      m ǎ;      m à

妈          麻          马          骂

Mother hemp    horse    scold

So, we must remember twenty-three sheng mu and twenty-four yun mu and the yun mu four tones before we can spell and pronounce Chinese words.

FIRST PART – Sheng Mu - consonant

b p m f d t l n g k h j q x z c s zh ch sh r y w

SECOND PART– Yun Mu (4 tones) – Vowel

a o e i u ü ai ei ui ao ou iu ie üe er an en in un ün ang eng ing ong

When the tones are both ‘3rd tone’ change the first one to a ‘2nd tone’

拼音的拼法：

任何中文字的发音都是由声母和韵母组成的，声母在前，韵母在后。韵母有四声，不同的声母和同一韵母不同的声调或不同的韵母组成不同的字的发音。

如： m ā m á m ǎ m à

        妈     麻    马    骂

所以，我们要记住二十三个声母二十四个韵母和韵母的四声，我们就可以拼出汉字的发音了。

Understanding and writing Chinese isn’t as difficult as it first appears.

Chinese is similar to English in two fundamental ways. An English word is made from the alphabet. A Chinese word is made from the Bi Hua strokes. There are 26 letters in the alphabet and 27 strokes in the Bi Hua. The major difference is that letters give guidance to a reader as to how a word could be pronounced. Where as the Bi Hua strokes give no guidance as to how a word can be pronounced (for that we need Pin Yin which is a recent innovation barely two centuries old).

The alphabet and the Bi Hua are the building blocks of each language, the foundations.

A word in English is then grouped into syllables, which are easily recognized and occur regularly. Similarly there are ‘syllables’ in Chinese writing. These are characters that occur regularly and are easily recognized. They are called the Pian Pang Bu Shou.

Chinese word configuration is from top to bottom - the top usually is “bu shou”, below is usually a simple word. The other configuration is from left to right - usually left is “pian pang” and right is a simple word. Of course, these are general rules and, like English, there are exceptions.

So, we write Chinese words from top to bottom, then from left to right.

Learning to write Chinese words is the same as learning to write in English. At first the words are formed slowly and laboriously. We learn to print words first. Then, when we have gained facility and confidence, we progress to cursive writing, or ‘running writing’. At first you will slowly and laboriously print Chinese words. That will teach you how they are formed. You then progress to cursive writing so you can write with speed and facility.

A good teacher of Chinese, will show you how to use the bi hua and the pian pang bu shou to learn to how write with speed and facility in Chinese.

学写汉字 ：

汉字的书写很复杂，习惯英文书写的人初练习写汉字会有不知从何下手的感觉。其实没有我们想像的那么难。

汉字也和英文一样，由简单的字组成。汉字有上下结构和左右结构。这两种结构的字都是由偏旁部手和简单的汉字组成的。上下结构的字，上面通常是部首，下面是简单的字。 而左右结构的字，左边是偏旁，右边是简单的字。当然也有写字例外。

我们写汉字都是从上到下，从左到右的。