Chi or Chee or qui or tchee or WTF

[natrigon]

More than a year ago I met Mei. I felt she was the one for me. I live in a small southern town and guess what? No chinese speech classes or tutors. So I bought some CD's. I am getting it. I can speak a little mandarin. Mei and I talk about one hour every night and I speak mostly mandarin while she speaks mostly english.

 

Now I am going all by memory which is a good idea but as the size of my vocabulary increases I forget more and more.

 

Any suggestion? Now I would like to write down some phrases, questions and thoughts in Pinyin (spelling?) but not sure how to use pinyin. Does anybody have a link or chart for Pinyin.

 

Louis

[Dean Hall]

Louis -

 

I've got a ton of material you will probably like, and will be glad to forward to you, but not right now - after I get back from China.

 

I am currently spending my time getting P4 items ready to leave on the 7th.

 

Dean

[se_lang]

Try this Chineseon.net

[Bobby]

I have two books (Berlitz Mandarin Chinese and Learn Chinese the Fast and Fun Way). The first one's great because it uses English phonetics (dui == dwee). The second one isn't so great, but I learned some pinyin from it. I saw some books at B&N the other day that looked great, but I can't remember any titles. I tried some language CD's, but she doesn't understand a word I say. I think its the fact I just can't get my tones straight. Oh well, I'll keep trying.

 

Here are my chinese links:

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/languages/1-6-4-8-1.html

http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/radicals.htm

http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/online.htm

http://www.mandarintools.com/ (pretty good)

http://www.popjisyo.com/WebHint/Portal_e.aspx (indespensible when I first started writing my fiance B))

[Guest bbridges51]

Pinyin is a great because it's phonetically correct every time, not like american words. Get a GOOD dictionary. The ones i've seen in the "big box" book stores are nice, but have a small vocabulary. Several members on CFL have recommended "Langenscheidt Pocket Dictionary Chinese." You'll find in at Amazon for a good price. it's a very nice dictionary in a small, sturdy book.

 

Other than that, i'd recommend you buy the Pimseleur Mandarin CD series. 30, 30 minute lessons in each box for about $170 at e-bay. many members here have sworn by them, and they're correct. it's a great teaching series that slowly, and constantly, teaches new words and has you practice them in a variety of sentence structures. It's one thing to try to learn new words. learning the syntax of the chinese language is quite another think. it takes time, and patience to build a substantial vocabulary...i've a long way to go until i feel comfortable, but with Pimseleur, i'm gaining several new words each day.

 

good luck.

 

brian

[natrigon]

oops Louis-

just saw on another thread, you have pimsleur 2 and 3

 

you wrote, "wa shwaw pu dway (or however you spell it)."

 

wo shuo bu dui

Frank,

 

Yes, I worked through course 1 and now I am on course 2, lesson 4. My fiance is impressed with my ability, we speak 1 hour every evening. I just would like to make some notes, my memory works better with visual elements instead of verbal and I want to start making notes with correct pinyin.

 

Louis

[Dynasty]

Louis,

 

Since some pinyin spelt words don't always sound like compositiom of the english letters. A Chinese friend of mine wrote down all the the pinyin sounds (not that many) and related them to sounds in english words.

I also have links to university web sites where you can learn phrases, they are also typed in english and pinyin.

If I have time this weekend, I'll type these in for you, if your interested.

 

pat

[natrigon]

Louis,

 

Since some pinyin spelt words don't always sound like compositiom of the english letters. A Chinese friend of mine wrote down all the the pinyin sounds (not that many) and related them to sounds in english words.

I also have links to university web sites where you can learn phrases, they are also typed in english and pinyin.

If I have time this weekend, I'll type these in for you, if your interested.

 

pat

Pat,

 

That is exactly what I am seeking thanks.

 

Louis

[Robert S.]

This list has all the pinyin sounds.

 

http://www.ibiblio.org/chinesehistory/cont...nts/c06s01.html

 

I was going to try to print it out but only printed one page because it was using up all my ink.

[natrigon]

Cool. Thanks all for the links all the information I can get would be great. I want to eat pinyin before my departure in 6 days. I even bought a 30 gig mp3 player (only $219), it holds all three pimsleur courses no prob. Still plenty of room to spare. I can;t beleive how cheap. It can also be used for data storage.

 

Louis

[se_lang]

Cool.  Thanks all for the links all the information I can get would be great.  I want to eat pinyin before my departure in 6 days.  I even bought a 30 gig mp3 player (only $219), it holds all three pimsleur courses no prob.  Still plenty of room to spare.  I can;t beleive how cheap.  It can also be used for data storage.

 

Louis

How is the sound on that Mp3 player I bought a 10 gig one last year it sucks as a player.

[natrigon]

Louis

How is the sound on that Mp3 player I bought a 10 gig one last year it sucks as a player.

It's called the nomad by creative. The sound is very good, quite loud. It certainly is not super high fidelity. I'm sure a good pair of headphones would make it excelelnt. But on full volume it is crisp and so loud that I think people around me can certainly hear it... but they can't. All in all, very good player.

 

Louis

[Dynasty]

Louis,

 

Since some pinyin spelt words don't always sound like compositiom of the english letters. A Chinese friend of mine wrote down all the the pinyin sounds (not that many) and related them to sounds in english words.

I also have links to university web sites where you can learn phrases, they are also typed in english and pinyin.

If I have time this weekend, I'll type these in for you, if your interested.

 

pat

Pat,

 

That is exactly what I am seeking thanks.

 

Louis

Louis,

First, here are the web sites:

 

http://www.wku.edu/~yuanh/AudioChinese/

 

http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/

 

Here are the sounds in english words, underlined is that part of the word:

 

hmmm, this format doesn't work to well, I will email to you in msword.

[natrigon]

Great, thanks all for the links. I found what I was looking for and assembled it into a one page pinyin/phonetic excell doc. Well I will try and paste it in here, let's see if it works.

 

Nope the format won't take correctly and my ftp program does not want to talk to my site. If anyone wants it let me know.

[Robert S.]

Thanks for sending me the table. It seems to have nearly every sound possible for human speech organs to make.

 

Sometimes you will hear Chinese people use another sound which I believe is not really a meaning-carrying sound (a phoneme), that is a scratchy "h" in the back of the throat. This is just an affectation, I would expect, though I am not a linguist, but I enjoy listening to the different degrees of scratchiness.

 

It is interesting the way they are incorporating English - like when you hear "OK" in the middle of a barrage of verbiage.