Episode 01: Listen, can you speak Chinese?
About this lesson
In our very first lesson, we'll get you started speaking useful Mandarin right away. You'll learn how to say whether or not you can speak Chinese, and we'll start building a good foundation for your accent, copying exactly what you hear.
Lesson notes
When you're listening to the sounds of Chinese or any other language, pay close attention to the intonation. This is the first thing that infants copy in their native language, and it should be the first thing you copy when learning Mandarin.
Give yourself permission to sound a little silly or weird to yourself -- you may even feel like you're doing a caricature of the other language, but you're really not. Faithfully mimicking what you hear actually shows that you respect the language, and that you're trying to speak it on its own terms. Native speakers will appreciate the effort, and have a much easier time understanding you.
Of course, this is true about any language, but it's doubly true for Chinese, where a different intonation can radically change the meaning of what you're saying. If it helps, you can think of it like learning to sing a song.
In this episode, we hear a dialogue between two people talking about what languages they speak. With enough repetitions and practice, you'll be speaking right along with them.
A note about pronunciation: The vocabulary list below includes the Chinese characters and the pinyin romanization system. The advantage of pinyin for English speakers is that it uses the familiar symbols of the Latin alphabet. The disadvantage is that English speakers are easily deceived into thinking these familiar symbols represent the same sounds they do in English. They don't. That said, pinyin can be a useful system to learn, but you must rely on your ears first, eyes second.
Don't expect to be able to pronounce anything just by reading the pinyin; the romanization is just a reference to jog your memory. It will only start to make sense once you have become familiar with the sounds themselves. You can achieve this through a daily practice of listening and imitating what you hear.
Dialogue vocabulary
你 :: nǐ :: you
我 :: wǒ :: I/me
好 :: hǎo :: good/OK
聽 :: tīng :: to listen, to hear
說 :: shuō :: to say, to speak
會 :: huì :: to be able to
不 :: bù :: not
中文 :: zhōngwén :: Mandarin / Chinese language
嗎 :: ma :: [indicates a question]
一點 :: yīdiǎn :: a little
對 :: duì :: correct/right
吧 :: ba :: [indicates a suggestion]
英文 :: yīngwén :: English language
加油 :: jiāyóu :: Good luck! / You got this!
Daily Practice Session
Dialogue text (Chinese characters)
Teaching Chinese characters is outside the scope of this podcast, and learning characters isn't something that should get in the way of starting to speak the language. However, if you are learning the characters already or are interested in doing so, the dialogue text below can be a useful visual aid while listening to the lesson.
M：你好
L：你好！
M：你聽我說
L：好
M：你會說中文嗎？
L：呃...
M：你不會？
L：我不會
M：你會吧！你會說一點中文，對吧！
L：對... 我會說一點點
M：對吧！
L：那，你會說英文嗎？
M：不會
L：喔...
M：加油！！！
Dialogue text (Pinyin)
M: Nǐ hǎo
L: Nǐ hǎo!
M: Nǐ tīng wǒ shuō
L: Hǎo
M: Nǐ huì shuō zhōngwén ma?
L: È...
M: Nǐ bù huì?
L: Wǒ bù huì
M: Nǐ huì ba! Nǐ huì shuō yīdiǎn zhōngwén, duì ba!
L: Duì... Wǒ huì shuō yīdiǎn diǎn
M: Duì ba!
L: Nà, nǐ huì shuō yīngwén ma?
M: Bù huì
L: Ō...
M: Jiāyóu!!!
