Topic:Chinese

From Wikiversity

Contents 1 Introduction to Chinese 2 Courses/projects 2.1 Current 2.2 Planned 2.3 Mandarin (Guānhuà 官话) with Simplified Chinese Writing 2.4 Cantonese (Yue4yu5 粵語) with Traditional Chinese Writing 3 Language reference 3.1 Vocabulary 3.2 Mandarin verb conjugation 4 Resources 4.1 Typing characters 5 Department news 6 External links 6.1 Open source programs to assist learning Chinese

歡迎光臨中文系。 Welcome to the Chinese Department at Wikiversity, part of the Center for Foreign Language Learning and the School of Language and Literature.

See also the award-winning Chinese Wikibook.

[edit] Introduction to Chinese

You are here because you want to learn or teach Chinese. Great! First, pick a dialect you wish to focus on. Your current options are Cantonese and Mandarin. There are more native Mandarin Chinese speakers than any other language in the world and it is the official language of mainland China , Taiwan, and Singapore. Cantonese, originating in the area around Guangdong Province, is spoken by about 70 million people worldwide and is the predominant language of overseas Chinese.

[edit] Courses/projects

[edit] Current

Courses currently being offered by the Chinese Department:

• Mandarin One, Lesson One - New Beta!

[edit] Planned

[edit] Mandarin (Guānhuà 官话) with Simplified Chinese Writing

This is the Chinese (Zhōngwén 中文) dialect spoken by 867.2 million speakers worldwide. Learning Mandarin Chinese will help you communicate to the largest linguistic group in the world. The classes here will focus on Standard Mandarin which is based on the Beijing dialect. This is spoken throughout the PRC as Pǔtōnghuà 普通话 ("common speech"), in ROC as Guóyu 國語 ("national language"), and in Singapore as Huáyu 华语 ("Chinese language"). Mandarin is the official language in the PRC and ROC while being the official Chinese dialect in Singapore. Simplified Chinese characters (jiǎntǐzì 简体字), the official Chinese characters (Hànzì 汉字) of the PRC and Singapore, will be exclusively used in the courseware here, along with the PRC's Hànyǔ Pīnyīn 汉语拼音 romanization system, to avoid confusion and enable communication to the maximum number of Chinese speaking people possible.

• List of Courses

[edit] Cantonese (Yue4yu5 粵語) with Traditional Chinese Writing

This is the native Chinese dialect for all of historical Guangdong province and the majority of overseas Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and North America by the common name of Gwong2dong1 Wa2 廣東話 ("Guangdong Speech"). It is also the de facto official Chinese spoken language of Hong Kong and Macau. The Chinese written language used by most of these groups, except in modern Guangdong province and Singapore, is the Traditional Chinese character (hon3zi6 漢字) system, and that is what will be used in this coursework along with using the Yale romanization system. Since it is argued that Cantonese is closer in form to historical Chinese, this may be a more direct way to understanding Classical Chinese once Classical Chinese courses taught in English and Cantonese are created. Also note that the usage of Traditional Chinese in this coursework will also be a benefit to Mandarin students that will be traveling to Taiwan so that they can familiarize themselves with how the traditional characters look from viewing the vocabulary lists before their trip.

• List of Courses

[edit] Language reference

[edit] Vocabulary

[edit] Mandarin verb conjugation

• Compared to many other languages, verb tenses in Mandarin Chinese are very simple. Verb conjugation in Chinese utilizes participles to imply various ideas rather than straight foward verb endings. Verbs are the same for all persons and tenses.

	Mandarin	English
kan4	看	to see or to watch
wo3 kan4 dian4shi4.	我看电视。	I watch the television
ta1 zai4 kan4 dian4shi4.	他在看电视。	He is watching the television.
ni3 kan4 le dian4shi4.	你看了电视。	You watched the television.
wo3men kan4guo dian4shi4.	我们看过电视。	We have watched the television before.

Notice how throughout subject and tense changes, 看 remains without any verb endings. For all pratical purposes, verbs are not conjugated in Mandarin Chinese.

[edit] Resources

• Wikibooks:Cantonese
• Wikipedia:Chinese language
• Wikipedia:List of Chinese dialects

[edit] Typing characters

• See: Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Enabling East Asian characters
• See: Wikipedia:Chinese character

[edit] Department news

• October 15, 2006 - 你好！ Department founded!

[edit] External links

• ChineseCast from eChineseLearning - Free Online Live Chinese Broadcast. Professional teachers teach frequently used Chinese to whoever is interested in learning Chinese.
• Chinese MP3 Recordings for Daily Chinese
• LiveMocha - Social Network for Foreign Language Students
• On-line Cang Jie input system

[edit] Open source programs to assist learning Chinese

• MyChineseFlashCards - Free program consisting of 1,000 Chinese character flashcards. Free version is GPL...