This table shows all of the countries that participated in the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Each country is listed in the order that they came out during the opening ceremony. This is also the order that is 'Alphabetical' in the Chinese Mandarin dialect. The order is established by taking the amount of strokes it requires to write the first syllable in Simplified Chinese characters. When two or more are equal, it goes to the next syllable. These are not all the countries in the World, just the 204 that competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Today marks the Beginning of Autumn 秋天 (qiūtiān), the 13th seasonal division on the traditional Chinese calendar. From a meteorological point of view, it symbolizes that the hot summer is about to end and cool autumn breezes will soon be blowing.


There are 24 seasonal division points by which the solar year is divided under the traditional Chinese astrological calendar. The Beginning of Autumn has been treated as a very important point since as early as 3,000 years ago. The royal family and officials usually gathered at the outskirts of the capital city to perform a ritual to usher in autumn. It not only marks the intersection between summer and autumn, but also the time to prepare for the year's harvest.

The Beginning of Autumn was also a festival in ancient times. People ate porridge made from red beans and dates which symbolize harvest for the year ahead.

Due to different geographical locations and altitudes, the exact date that each area of China enters the season of autumn varies. In most areas, summer heat will stay around for another month or so until temperatures eventually drop day-by-day to about 22 degrees Celsius in early September - the real beginning of fall.

Autumn is often seen as the most beautiful season of the year with comfortable weather and fine scenery. Farmers across the country are preparing for a big harvest that will bring hope and luck for the year ahead.

News and Picture Source:
CCTV

Photo Source:
Flickr

Today I spent all of my time (much to my girlfriends distress) researching and collecting information for a massive blogpost (or three) about the Beijing Olympics last year. Saturday is the anniversary of the opening ceremony and in its honour I am making a super blog post about it. So I apologise to myself and any of you that were expecting something exciting about what I had learnt today.... But what I did manage to put together quickly for you is the opposite of yesterday's phrase 很大 hěn dà.

Ok so today as promised I said I would place here what I felt I had learnt through my Mandarin studying today.

I came across a phrase in Rosetta Stone that I hadn't before and had to google to understand it.

很大 (hěn dà)
quite big

This would be used to describe the size of something after you had said the item, for example;

这个鸟蛋很大
zhè gè niǎo dàn hěn dà
This egg is quite big.

鸟 (niǎo) actually means bird (something else I have just found out. :). So I'm not sure if this is right in this context. However it does hope to illustrate the point.

Let us try another one, just so you get the point;

这个苹果很大
zhè gè píngguǒ hěn dà
This apple is quite big.

But this sentence should actually of course be:

这个苹果核很大
zhè gè píngguǒhé hěn dà
This applecore is quite big.

Hope you ejoyed my discovery of the phrase: Quite Big. 很大 hěn dà.



Charlie.




Photo Source:
Flickr

I want to learn Mandarin well. I want to be able to talk, read and write in this fantastic language, and today I did a little bit. Twitter with it's #MandarinMonday search term is a great way to communicate to other people and learn more about this language.

I must admit to somewhat cheating with a translation service I have found, but it seems to work remarkably well (as for now) and has helped me devolop some key words and recognise key characters in sentences. I feel a little bit cheeky for having used it, in time I promise that it will become all of my own hard work translating sentances myself.

Today I leave myself, and anyone else in a similar position with this mantra;

China has sealed off Ziketan, a remote northwestern town of 10,000 people for quarantine purposes, state media said Monday. Two People have died and another ten people had contracted the disease in the ethnically Tibetan region of the sparsely populated province of Qinghai, Xinhua. World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that the outbreaks are nothing new though and have said;

"There have been sporadic cases reported over the years. We are not surprised that it has come up. We're in constant contact with the authorities to make sure things are under control."

An official at the Qinghai government's health department said authorities were confident of keeping the outbreak under control.

"We have already closed off the infected area. We are currently treating those who are sick."

Pneumonic plague is spread through the air and can be passed from person to person through coughing. It is caused by the same bacteria that occurs in bubonic plague - the Black Death that killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe during the Middle Ages.



News Source:
Reuters

Photo Source:
Straits Times

Today, is the day where I can say, I have now been learning Mandarin for a Month. Technically I have been learning for almost two, although with holidays and moving house I have only been able to settle down this month to start to properly learn.

Now I started out and promised myself that I would spend an hour a day learning, and to be truthfully honest, it has not happened. Some days I have spent learning for a lot longer than an hour, but more often than not, due to me wanting to read, everything there is out there about Mandarin and Chinese culture, and the various other things I do, I just have not had the time.

However, I have still learnt a lot, and will continue to do so. I can now count in Mandarin, although my pronouciation still needs considerable work, can recognise more characters and can read pinyin infinitely better than I could a month ago.

You hit a stage when you start learning Mandarin after the first barrier, where you bound along learning many new (easy-ish) words. You make real progress, but suddenly you will hit another harder barrier, and it can be easy to stop there. Which I have been guilty of so far. It is so much more pleasing to burst through the barrier and make even more progress.

I cannot wait to bring this to two months of Mandarin. Or six. Mandarin seems to me to be a language you will never stop learning once you start. I was seriously scared and put off this week when Bill posted this link: voicesinshanghai.posterous.com/, which has lots of Chinese natives speaking in dialect as they really do in China, and it is great to hear the people really speaking the language, and not just the studio-learning accent. However it did make me realise how much of an enormous task I have started, and it was rather humbling to see how far I really had progressed this Month.

Charlie.


Photo Source:
Flickr

Chinese railway authorites are to launch high-speed Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) trains on 15th August. They will appear on a railway linking the eastern financial hub of Shanghai and northern Tianjin City, shortening the trip by an hour.

The EMU trains, coded D341 and D342, are expected to shorten the trip time from the current 10.5 hours to nine hours and 14 minutes, said an official with Tianjin Train Terminal.

He said the Tianjin-Shanghai EMU will be put into use from Aug. 15 and the Shanghai-Tianjin EMU one day later.


News Source:
CCTV

My friend Gabriel, over at learnchinesetoday.info has written a guest post based about histoical figure Qin Shi Huang and his influence on the Chinese Language.

As some of you may know, the official title of 'emperor' was first used by Qin Shi Huang several hundred years before Christ. At the end of the 7 warring states period, the Qin state had conquered most of the other states and unified China properly.

Historically speaking, it was true that under the leadership of Qin Shi Huang, life was harsh and difficult. Many historians viewed him as a dictator who ruled across the land with an iron hand.
Untold numbers died working to build the Great Wall of China.

And yet paradoxically, it was Qin Shi Huang who had help create a lasting legacy in Chinese history. He had played a huge role in maintaining the stability and longevity of Chinese culture.

What did he contribute? Well, before the Qin dynasty, the 7 different states each had their own languages, rules and customs. After unification, Qin Shi Huang went about creating one common language. Everyone had to read and write the same Chinese characters.

This seemingly simple but profound change in standardizing the Chinese language would bind and enable the Chinese people to maintain their identity and culture for thousands of years to come.

If he had not done so, China might have developed differently. The Chinese people might have different languages and writing not unlike Europe (the French, British, etc.)

There were many more changes Qin Shi Huang made that help shaped the future course of Chinese imperial system, but suffice to say, Qin Shi Huang was not merely known as just a brutal dictator.

So the next time you wish to learn Chinese, think back to this historical figure who had contributed much to this ancient language.

Chinese Mandarin may not have an Alphabet but its Numerical system is very logical, much more so than the English number system. Here are the first ten numbers

0 零 / 〇 líng
1 一 yī
2 二 èr
3 三 sān
4 四 sì
5 五 wǔ
6 六 iù
7 七 qī
8 八 bā
9 九 jiǔ
10 十 shí

Once you have mastered these you have basically mastered the numerical system upto 99. So just to give you an idea here are the next ten numbers in Chinese.

11 十一 shí yī
12 十二 shí èr
13 十三 shí sān
14 十四 shí sì
15 十五 shí wǔ
16 十六 shí liù
17 十七 shí qī
18 十八 shí bā
19 十九 shí jiǔ
20 二十 èr shí

Techincally these first ten double digit numbers should use the preceeding 一(yī) but in most dialects it is ommited. Thus best practise for 11 is 一十一 (yī shí yī). The language allows you to add the number before the ten. So when you need to use the number 40 you will be saying four-tens. Here are the tens upto one hundred.

10 十 shí
20 二十 èr shí
30 三十 sān shí
40 四十 sì shí
50 五十 wǔ shí
60 六十 liù shí
70 七十 qī shí
80 八十 bā shí
90 九十 jiǔ shí
100 百 baǐ (一百 yībaǐ)

And when saying numbers in double figures for example 42 (the answer to life, the universe and everything). As above you say four-tens two. 四十二 (sìshí èr). This works exactly the same when working into the hundreds. For example 438 is four-hundreds-three-tens-eight. 四百三十八

1000 一千 yī qiān　

So lets try some now. What is the Mandarin phrase for 68? (answers at the bottom.)


91?

136?

424?





And what number are these?


三十二 ?

八十七 ?

六百十五 ?


Scroll down for your answers:





Answers:

68 is 六十八 (liù shí bā)

91 is 九十一 ( jiǔ shí yī)

136 is 百三十六 (baǐ sān shí iù)

424 is 四百二十四 (sì baǐ èr shí sì)



八十七 is 87
三十二 is 32
六百十五 is 615

Hopefully this lessons got you involved and wanting you to learn a little more about the numerical system, and with repitition you should be able to grasp the numbering system easily.


Charlie

Photo Source:
Flickr:Kenyee