Question

Chinese Exam 1 Study Guide: Greetings & Family

Answer 1

\({\bf{Overview~of~Exam~1:}}\)
two sections: the first section will give me a character and ask to write out the pinyin
the second section will give you a list of characters to put together into a sentence.

the second section imo is a lot easier so I will be focusing on how to remember the tones

Answer 2

\({\bf{Lesson~One~Dialogue~1:}}\)
你好 nǐ hǎo (33) combines 你 which means you and 好 which means good
notice that ni contains the person radical and hao combines the mother and child radical

我 wǒ (3), meaning I or me, has the same tonee as nǐ

请问 qǐngwèn (34) "may I ask you" notice that wen combines the radicals for door and for mouth

你贵姓? (344) combines "guì" meaning honorable and "xìng" meaning last name, so this literally means "your honorable last name?"

Answer 3

呢 vs 吗 (ne vs ma)

these are both question particles w/ neutral tone (both of them have the mouth radical, suggesting they both share similar meaning)

什么 shénme? (20) tone 2 is often associated with questions since it has a rising inflection
can remember that "me" is neutral by comparing it to the question particles ne and ma

叫什么？ (420) here we add jiào, which has a 4th tone, since it means to call you can imagine a parent being angry at their child and calling them for something, since tone 4 is often associated with harshness or anger

_____ 叫什么名子? here we add míngzi (20) which means name
I am grouping these together because míngzi (20) and shénme? (20) have the same tone

putting them together we get "what is his/her/its name?"

Answer 4

Mr. vs. Miss

先生 (xiāngsheng), tones 10
小姐 (xiǎojiě), tones 33

getting into some stereotyping here but if you want to remember this try to imagine a man who is level-headed (a flat tone, followed by a neutral tone. "sheng" gets used for a lot of things like 学生 (student) so perhaps it makes sense that sheng is neutral?

for "miss", both characters have the third tone, so perhaps imagine saying it in a very cutesy way where your tone of voice goes from high to low to high again

just note that 小姐 (xiǎojiě), while taught in our textbook, is not socially acceptable everywhere

Answer 5

while we're on the subject of titles, let's add the words for "teacher" and "student"

老市 vs 学生

lǎo shī (31) vs xuésheng (20)

like stated before, sheng has a neutral tone
I don't know a clever way to remember laoshi, but perhaps you can think of a student nodding once (third tone) and then being still (first tone, flat)

we will reuse xué when we're talking about stuff related to education in general

Answer 6

getting into lesson 1 dialogue 2 here but:

是 (4) vs. 不是 (24)

是 shì (meaning is/am/are/etc. has a fourth tone. you can imagine a child saying "is too" very forcefully, indicating a fourth tone

不 bù, meaning "no" or "not" actually normally takes a 4th tone

but if we have something like 不是 (24) it comes across as too harsh to use two 4-tones in a row so we change the bu to a second tone to lessen the severity

人 (rén) person (2nd tone, just gotta know this because this character will come up everwhere)
也 (yě) also, can remember this by thinking that the third tone goes down but ~also~ goes up

Answer 7

now, for something a bit more interesting, countries! since there's no literal translation for most country names, Chinese translate country names phonetically, meaning they pick characters that sound close to the real name of the country.

中国 (zhōngguó) 12 = China, with zhōng meaning "middle" and guó meaning "country" since China is in the middle of Asia

for the tone "zhōng" since this means middle, try to imagine the tone that is a horizontal line that divides the upper and lower halves (tone 1)

guó you can remember tone 2 by thinking about how this word pairs with rén which also has a tone 2

美国 (měiguó) meaning "America". měi means "beautiful" so think of something beautiful that looks like the symbol for the third tone, like a geese formation or a nice set of eyebrows

纽约 (nǔyuē) 31 has the same set of tones as 老市 so think of a teacher from New York to remember that they have the same tones

last thing for Lesson 1

北京 běijīng (31) also has the same set of tones as 老市 so think of a teacher from Beijing

side note: I cannot stand when people pronounce "Beijing" as "Bay-zzzhing," the j sound is the same in Chinese as it is in English

Answer 8

\({\bf{Lesson~Two~Dialogue~1:}}\)

this vs that
这 vs 那 (zhè vs nà)
just like in English you would use zhè for something nearby-ish and nà for something farther away
both of them have a 4th tone to indicate some level of stress/urgency

Family members:

爸爸 (bàba) father (40)
妈妈 (māma) mother (10)
哥哥 (gēge) older brother (10)
姐姐 (jiějie) older sister (30)
弟弟 (mèimei) younger sister(40)
妹妹 (dìdi) younger brother (40)

notice that all of these characters have a neutral second tone. this is particularly important because often times you drop the second character to be a little less formal

ex. 我妈 vs 我妈妈

remembering the tones on these is kind of a pain
personally I think little kids are kind of annoying so I associate younger sister/younger brother with tone 4

jiějie I kind of associate with a beautiful young woman, so I make the association with 美 which also has a third tone

bàba I associate w/ somebody a bit more forceful and māma with someone who is a bit more passive so that's how I remember the tones

Answer 9

his/her

他vs她, notice how they both have the 也 radical

both have tone 1

Answer 10

儿子 (érzi) son

孩子 (háizi) child

女儿 (nǚér) daughter

putting son and child together because they both have the same tone pattern (20)
if you can remember that ér sounds like 二 you can remember that ér has tone 2 (idk this might get confusing)

notice that zi has a neutral tone, this is another case like sheng where a character that gets re-used a lot often has a neutral tone

Answer 11

家 jiā (family) this character has an interesting historical derivation
the radical on top is roof and the character on the bottom is "pig"
because historically the average Chinese person would live in a house where the top part is reserved for the family and the bottom half is reserved for pigs or other farm animals

Answer 12

和 hé ("and" has a rising inflection so imagine somebody saying "and"?)

liǎng another way to say two, but used in cases where you have a pair of something (the rules for er vs liang are messy and won't get into it right now)

几口 jǐ and kǒu both have tone 3

jǐ is used for questions regarding the quantity of something
kǒu is a counting word for close family members

Answer 13

professions

律市 lǜshī, meaning lawyer, has the same shī from laoshi so if you can remember that shī has tone 1 you at least have half the tones down on this word
imagine like Phoenix Wright aggressively pointing/pointing out something, that's how you can remember lǜ has a 4th tone

医生 yīshēng (doctor) on the other hand has two tone 1's

Answer 14

ah. I forgot to provide a source for this >_>

Source is Integrated Chinese, 4th edition. Yueha Liu, et. al.