Nouns are pretty simple in the Chinese language. The best way to practice the tones is to listen carefully and to repeat the words and sentences. One of the most difficult element for the learner of the Chinese language is the correct pronunciation of the four phonemic tones: the first tone (ˉ), the second tone (′), the third tone (ˇ), and the forth tone (‵) because the concept of Tones is not existing in many European Languages including English. However there are also elements in the Chinese language that we do not have in many Western Languages. Whereas the English verb “to know somebody” might have different forms like “knows”, “knew”, “known” etc., the equivalent Chinese verb 认识 (rèn shí) itself always stays the same, regardless of the context. When compared to other Languages, on a fundamental level the Mandarin grammar is actually very simple.Įach word normally stays the same thus there are no conjugations, no plural forms, no genders and no articles. (ˇ) 你 (nǐ).Ĭharacters are used everywhere in daily life, such as books, newspapers, signs, etc… Phonetic scripts and tones, together called Pīnyīn, are used in dictionaries and textbooks to guide learners to learn the pronunciation of the characters. Mandarin Chinese consists of characters/ standard script (你), phonetic script (ni), and tone marks, e.g. It is different from another popular Chinese language, Cantonese, which is mainly spoken in Guangdong province and Hong Kong. The Chinese you are learning here is the official language of China, which is also called Mandarin Chinese. Focus on learning the four tones correctly early on as the wrong tones can change the meaning of words completelyĬheck out our comprehensive Chinese Mandarin learning App L-Lingo which contains 105 lessons with grammar notes, thousands of words and high quality audio.Use a spaced repetition vocabulary builder to learn words and phrases.Decide if you want to learn them or just focus on spoken Mandarin Learning the Chinese characters is hard.Try and find a good Mandarin teacher and enroll in a Chinese language class or visit China for more immersion.how to construct questions, pronunciation etc. Get a Chinese Mandarin Phrasebook and write simple phrases and words on Flashcards and memorize them.