How To Learn Mandarin Easily With Jie Wei Ling

Are you still studying the Mandarin Language? How many words you have learned? Did you know that the mandarin words is so many?. The one of mandarin difficulties is there are two words that can combined into a new words. Example : 安 (safe) and 排 (bars) can be combined to a new form : 安排 (arrange). They can be used in combined forms or stand alone depends on your needs.

The amount of words that you have learned is so essential, especially if we talk about HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi/Mandarin Proficiency Test). In this test you need to mastering many bunch of mandarin words. And you must understand where and when the words should be used.

So, today we will introduce you how to learn mandarin words with fun methods! We can play a traditional Chinese games called 接尾令 (jie wei ling)! The game rules is we must interconnect the words that mentioned by the last speaker. Examples : 早上 (zao shang - morning) - 上面 (shang mian - upper part) - 面包 (mian bao - bread) - 包装 (bao zhuang - packs) - 装修 (zhuang xiu - renovating) - dst), continuously.

If you want to playing this smoothly, you must understand many words so you can interconnect the words that the speakers have spoke it. If not, you can't do many things and the score would be given to the another person who can connect the words.

I have tried this games several times, usually i played it on Facebook Groups. We write the Hanzi and Pinyin together with the meaning to helps other people who want to learn mandarin.

This game is so interesting if there are many participants. We can mention so many words in the comment section and learning it means together. But, for anyone who aren't understand enough words to participate, you can watch and take note on the words that have mentioned by the participants. Imagine, how many words you can learn in every single game!.

After you have understand enough words, you can participate into this game. We recommend you write down the words (with the handwriting input or pinyin input) so this can helps you to memorize the hanzi and pinyin forms together with the games. So this can train all of mandarin ability in funny way!

Are you interesting to join us? You can search the mandarin learning groups through your Social Media (you can use the LINE Square too). Happy learning!

How To Count Your Money In Mandarin Way

Counting money in Mandarin Way? Why not? Even it looks hard because of the numbers order on China is so different with western system, but learning how to counting your money is so important especially for you who want to live in China.

Maybe you have heard the local Chinese speaking the money with the hokkien language. As we know, the Hokkien people is speread all over the world and their accent have been adapted with the local accent. B ut, we can see that the numbers order is still follow the China's standard.

At China country, they use RMB (人民币 = Ren Min Bi) or we can call it as Yuan or CNY (China Yuan). In the daily conversation, the chinese usually use the kuai metrics unit for counting money.

In Indonesia, we have accustomed to use rounded money currency without cents. But, in the China we will use the 3 kinds of currency breakdown. Here is the details :

• Yuan and Kuai for the main currency
• Mao (毛) or Jiao (角) for the tens cents currency
• Fen (分) is used for the littlest cents

Examples:

• 0.38 RMB written as 三毛八分 (Sān máo bā fēn) or 三角八分 (Sānjiǎo bā fēn)
• 126.66 RMB written as 一百二十六块三毛三分 (Yībǎi èrshíliù kuài sān máo sān fēn yuán) or 一百二十六元三角三分 (Yībǎi èrshíliù yuán sānjiǎo sān fēn)
• 36.00 RMB written as 三十六块 (Sānshíliù kuài) or 三十六元 (Sānshíliù yuán)

Remember there are formal form and informal form (for daily conversation purposes). You can use the formal way for daily conversation, but can't use the informal way to the formal condition.

For additional information, for efficiency reason usually the money amount isn't written with hanzi form. So, you must memorize the hanzi form of numbers perfectly so you can speak and read the number fluently.

There are no difficulty aren't these? Like in another developed countries, the China money currency is stable enough, so you maybe won't meet the money amount above of 10.000 RMB (1 USD is equal with 7 RMB). Except you want to buy a real estate or a car.

How Is The Original Mandarin Alphabet Look Like?

There are many alphabetical type in this world. And some examples of the variants are Latin, Greece, Hebrew, Tagalog, Japanese Hiragana, until the Sign language. The most popular of the alphabetical use is the Latin alphabet (from a to z). Many countries is using the Latin alphabet to represents their words. And now, we will discuss about original Mandarin alphabetical model.

We won't talk about hanzi! Because hanzi is already represents any words and having any specific means, in other word the hanzi isn't an alphabet. But, we will talk about from where the pronunciation guidelines of the hanzi. For example, how come the character 我 is called "wo3"?

The mandarin alphabet is distinguished with 2 kinds : Zhu Yin (注音) and Pin Yin (拼音). Zhu Yin is the one of authentic Mandarin alphabet, and usually called MPS (Mandarin Phonetic Symbols) or Bopomofo. And the Pin Yin is the Mandarin alphabet that have adjusted with the Latin alphabethical system.

So, the Pin Yin and Zhu Yin can be reverted to the Latin alphabet with some additional guidelines and its usually called the "Pin Yin Guidelines"

Today, the International standard of Mandarin pronunciation is the Pin Yin. And the Zhu Yin is only used in Taiwan state.

Pin Yin

The  Pin Yin pronunciation method is almost same with the Latin methods. And the writing methods is from left to right with Sheng diao above the suitable vowel. The Sheng diao can be wrote with the numbers code too (e.g. : 我 = wo3).

The Pin Yin Sheng Diao variants : "-" for the first tone, "/" for the second tone, "v" for the third tone, and "\" for the fourth tone. And "empty" for repetition tone.

Pin Yin is only used for the beginner. Actually, you won't see any Pin Yin guidelines in a magazine or newspaper.

Zhu Yin

Zhu Yin is a symbol that represents any vowel or consonants. In Taiwan State, almost of all keyboard is equipped with Zhu Yin input compatibility.

The Zhu Yin isn't same with the Latin alphabet read and write methods (e.g. ;  我 = ㄨㄛˇ). The non computing writing methods is from above to below, and the Sheng Diao is written in the right side.

Zhu Yin Sheng Diao variants : "empty" for the first tone. "/" for the second tone, "v" for the third tone. amd "v" for the fourth tone. The repetition tone is written as ".".

Learning Zhu Yin could be very frustrating for the beginners. It is because of no relation between Zhu Yin, Pin Yin, and Hanzi. The students also need to memorize all of the phonetics symbol with the correct pronunciation.

You can see the relation between Zhu Yin and Pin Yin in table below:

Zhu Yin	Pin Yin
ㄚ	a
ㄛ	o
ㄝ	e (like "leave")
ㄜ	e (like "learn")
ㄧ	i
ㄨ	u
ㄩ	v
ㄅ	b
ㄆ	p
ㄇ	m
ㄈ	f
ㄉ	d
ㄊ	t
ㄋ	n
ㄌ	l
ㄐ	j
ㄑ	q
ㄒ	x
ㄍ	g
ㄎ	k
ㄏ	h
ㄗ	z
ㄘ	c
ㄙ	s
ㄓ	zh
ㄔ	ch
ㄕ	sh
ㄖ	r
ㄞ	ai
ㄟ	ei
ㄠ	ao
ㄡ	ou
ㄢ	an
ㄣ	n
ㄤ	ang
ㄥ	ng
ㄦ	er

The only way to learn these phonetic symbols is use it frequently. Because there no relation between the Zhu Yin, Pin Yin, and Hanzi. No one can guess Pin Yin from Zhu Yin, Zhu Yin from Pin Yin, or Hanzi from the these pronounce methods and vice versa without dictionary help. You must memorize all of them perfectly.

What Is The Difference Of Traditional and Simplified Hanzi?

For anybody who have learned the Mandarin Language before, maybe have known about the mandarin character called hanzi, is divide within 2 kind of type: Simplified and the Traditional version. The origin of the two hanzi type is same from China. But at 1911 china's revolution, Mao Ze Dong have simplified major of the hanzi character. Some of the Mao Ze Dong doing was erasing the budhist elements of hanzi or reducing unnecessary hanzi stroke.

However, not all traditional hanzi can be transform into the simplified. In fact, there are a lot of hanzi traditional character is still used because the simplified version cannot covers all of literature importance, and there are few ambiguous simplified version. There it is:

The Change Of Radical

Some of hanzi simplified have change on the radical type, the example is 听 (pinyin : ting = hear) on simplified version and 聽 (pinyin : ting = hear) on traditional version, there are radical change from 耳 (er = ear) to 口 (kou = mouth), and the strokes have been significantly reduced to. But, if you see on the radical change, you can see that the radical is wrong and misinform because we should use ear to hearing sounds, not using mouth.

Another ambiguous radical change is on the 愛 (ai = love) to 爱 (ai = love). Why the heart component must erased?

Some of hanzi experts have put any question of this ambiguous change. But no one still can answer it.

Stroke reduction

Compared with the traditional, simplified have much easier way to write and memorize. Some of character with significantly stroke reducing is 樂 (le = happy) to 乐 (le = happy). So much simpler and easier.

Sheng diao (tone) removal

This is the second ambiguous things after the radical changes. Where is a tone removal on some words of simplified version (except the repeating word like 爸爸 (baba) or 妈妈 (mama) that should have tone removal on the second word).

The example is on the 朋友 (peng3 you0), where the pinyin tone should be peng3 and you4. This is perhaps of the complicated pinyin regulation. Therefore, many of people that newly studying mandarin character encounter some ambiguous situation that when the tone should be removed or not.

Pinyin and Zhuyin Usage

If you are live on the Taiwan state, maybe you can be confused because there is no pinyin regulation in the Taiwan state, but they are using the Zhuyin regulation beside. Zhuyin in the famous mandarin phonetic symbol (MPS) that represent the old way of reading methods of the Mandarin character.

If you are used to study with pinyin, maybe you cannot use it at Taiwan state because there are no relation between Pinyin and Zhuyin.

The world are still change to the better and better and so the Mandarin character. I hope the China government can fixing and adjusting the regulation between the two version of mandarin character perfectly in the future.