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Mandarin Chinese Basics and Common Phrases

Mandarin Chinese (known as putonhua, or National Speech, in China) is the official language of China. It is not the only dialect, but it is the one you are most likely to come across in China and amongst Chinese overseas (other common dialects include Cantonese and Shainghainese; in total there are around 100 spoken dialects of Chinese). This page gives you a few simple phrases that would be helpful to anyone going to China, and that can serve as a taster if you're interested in learning to speak Chinese.

Pronunciation:

To allow Westerners read Chinese words and place names, a system exists known as Pinyin. This represents Chinese words using the familiar Latin alphabet. To English speakers the pronunciation of Pinyin isn't very intuitive and may be difficult to get right at first.

j, q, and x, are pronounced j, ch, s, respectively, with your tongue touching your bottom front teeth, and the air hissing over the middle part of your tongue.
zh, ch, and sh, are pronounced j, ch, sh respectively, with your tongue curled up and back, reaching up and touching the middle of the roof of your mouth.
z, c, and s, should be pronounced dz, ts, s respectively, with the tip of your tongue near the base of your front teeth.
a as in father
e as in the i in sir
i as in see (or i in sir, after z)
o as in flow, being careful not to pronounce the 'w'
u as in ooooo
ao as in ow
ei as in say

Tones:

Chinese is a tonal language. This means you have to vary the pitch of your voice when pronouncing words in order to portray the correct meaning. Mandarin Chinese has the same word for mother, horse and swear (ma), with only the tone to indicate which one is meant!

First tone: High and even sounding tone. Indicated in Pinyin by a flat line above a vowel
Second tone: Rising in pitch, almost like English speakers raise their voice to ask a question. Indicated by a diagonal line going up (/)
Third tone: Starts by falling and then rises back up again. Indicated by a circumflex (^) upside down
Fourth tone: Falling in pitch. Indicated by a diagonal line going down (\)
Neutral tone: This is said without any stress, pronounce a neutral tone as if it were English. There are no special indicators in Pinyin for this tone

There is one important rule to bear in mind with tones. When two third tones appear together, the first of the two turns into a second tone. So Ni3 hao3 is pronounced Ni2 hao3. For three third tones, the middle one usually becomes a second. The reason for this is that it is very difficult to say two third tones together (try it).

Basic phrases:

Now that you can pronounce Chinese it's time to try some simple phrases out: (Note: The Mandarin is written with numbers to indicate tone)

Hello Ni 3 hao 3

Goodbye Zai 4 jian 4

How are you? Ni 3 hao 3 ma I

'm very well Wo 3 hen 3 hao 3

Please Qing 3

Thank you Xie 4 xie 4 ni 3

You're welcome Bu 4 ke 1 qi 2

Excuse me / sorry Dui 4 bu 4 qi 2

What's your name? Ni 3 jiao 1 shen 2 me ming zi

I am called... / my name is Wo 3 jiao 1... / wo 3 de ming zi shi 4...

Where are you from? (only to ask which country) Ni 3 shi 4 na 3 guo 2 ren 2 ma?

Do you speak English? Ni 3 hui 4 shuo 1 ying 1 yu 3 ma

I don't understand Wo 3 bu 2 li 3 jie 3

Where is/are...? ...zai 4 na 3 li

Welcome Huan 1 ying 3

Here Zhe 4 li

There Na 4 li

Who? Shei 2

What? Shen 2 me

When? Shen 2 me shi huo (lit. What time?)

Where? Na 3 li

Why? wei 4 shen 2 me

How? zen 2 me

How much? Duo1 shao3

Want Yao 4

Don't want bu2 yao4

One Yi 1

Two Er 4

Three San 1

Four Si 4

Five Wu 3

Six Liu 4

Seven Qi 1

Eight Ba 1

Nine Jiu 3

Ten Shi 2

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