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

The Chinese National Population and Family Planning Commission today admitted that over 13 million abortions a year are conducted in China.

Wu Shangchun, a division director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission's technology research centre, told China Daily that research shows nearly half of the women who had abortions had not used any form of contraception.

Research in China regarding this statistic has said that inadequate knowledge about contraception is a major contributing factor to the sheer number of abortions.

Yet another shocking figure it that over 70% of the Chinese people surveyed did not know that sexual transmission is the main contributor to the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus.

Li Ying, a professor at Peking University said Chinese parents are reluctant to teach their children about sex, so more needs to be done on sex education.
"Sex education needs to be strengthened, with universities and our society giving more guidance,”
The real number of abortions is much higher than reported, because the figures are collected only from registered medical institutions. As many abortions, are performed in unregistered clinics.
In addition, about 10 million abortion-inducing pills, used in hospitals for early-stage abortions, are sold every year in the country.
The Shanghai hotline, which offers help for pregnant women, has reported an increase in calls, mostly from women 18 and under. Abortions cost about 600 Yuan ($88). Since the 1990s, doctors have not asked for a woman's marital status when an abortion is performed.
There are about 20 million births in the country each year.

News Source:
China Daily

Photo Source:
Flickr: Art Es Anna

I have been trying out several different ways of learning Mandarin as I set upon this language-learning journey. There is a multitude of different ways you can go about learning any language, and it can be overwhelming.

The language is of course overwhelming itself. No alphabet, 56,000+ characters, it looks wildly different from western languages and over a billion people speak it as their first language. The amount of people you can then speak to, after learning increases almost 200% from English to Mandarin. By being able to speak both of course, you are able in theory to speak to almost two billion people. A third of the world’s population.

Mandarin is also now the third most spoken language in the US, and as the Chinese economy is growing, it makes business sense to start to be able to converse in Chinese Mandarin. It makes sense to start learning Mandarin in terms of numbers of people and economics.

Yet of those reasons alone will not give you either the confidence or the determination to learn something so radically different. In my opinion, you have to want to learn Mandarin and have passion for the culture surrounding the language. The more you want to understand and open yourself up to the culture and language simultaneously the more you will take in.

Here, I wanted to just put a couple of links to software and books that I personally feel are good, as well as other resources, and ideas that could help you learn Mandarin. Nothing beats hard work and enthusiasm when learning a new language though.

1. From books:
   
   There are so many different books that usually come with accompanying audio series for language learning, I could not even try to list them all. The ones I have personally found useful are:
   
   Chinese for Dummies
   Complete Mandarin Chinese Book/CD Pack
   
   I also purchased a book that teaches to write characters, although in my naivety I bought the traditional characters guide, whilst most people that use Mandarin use the simplified characters. It seems that mainly those in Taiwan and Hong Kong use the traditional Chinese characters.
   
   
2. Podcasts:
   
   I have been made aware of some podcast series that help you learn Mandarin, whilst I personally do not use them. They are out there and no doubt help conversational Mandarin, whilst furthering the development of hearing the language day to day. The ease of being able to slip on headphones at work, or on the way to and from work, or even in the evening as you are relaxing, is very useful.
   
   The downside to this is as far as I can tell most podcasts tend to cost 99p per lesson, and they do not always cover as much as you would like.
   
   
3. Rosetta Stone
   
   Personally I seem to get on with Rosetta stone well for learning new vocab and repeating the vocab in new ways that reinforces the learning. It is based around a picture system, where you get words and the pictures together and no there is no English spoken or written. I have found that the lack of explanation sometimes causes confusion (though does make you actively learn by trial and error which is engaging and therefore good) especially when first introducing negatives and possessive elements of the language. Otherwise though it is a strong software package which I thoroughly recommend.
   
   Rosetta Stone: Chinese (Mandarin) Level 1, 2 and 3 Set (Mac/PC CD)
   
   
4. Online Mandarin / Mango Languages
   
   
There is a plethora of upstarts and a myriad of compaies that offer Mandarin courses in one way or another. Here I would like to share a couple of the gems I have found and utilised.

One of the other benefits to having twitter is being able to find out about all the other resources out there. I was lucky enough to talk to the moderator of MangoLanguages, and their system is similar in the repetition to that of Rosetta Stone, but without the pictorial element, which means that everything you learn is directly translated from English to Mandarin. The explanations are really good and there is extra narrative to provide a lot of background knowledge that Rosetta Stone cannot provide.

Both of these systems (Rosetta Stone & Mango Languages) are great, one is just CD based off of your computer, Rosetta Stone and Mango languages are quite pricy, though Mango is free at certain libraries. I personally recommend Rosetta Stone, because I believe being immersed in the language and picking it up and working it out first hand is great.

As for other learning Mandarin sites that I have found useful:

BBC offer a small amount of free lessons and games to initiate you in Mandarin learning. I recommend the Mandarin tone recognition game.

[I am open to any other suggestions for inclusion here]



5. Twitter & #Mandarinmonday
   
   Though it is also on the internet this tool I think is immensely helpful so I have given it. its own point. Though social networking site Twitter, I have met several people that have already been incredibly helpful in my learning. Twitter is incredibly useful for meeting people that have similar interests, and I would recommend if you do not have an account, go and set one up.
   
   When you do, you will start to notice that to make things easier to search people use #hash key to keep relevant topics together and easily scan-able. Bill and his friends have started Mandarin Monday, which is where anyone that wants to can get involved speaking mandarin and trying out new phrases, whilst native speakers will correct and aid the learning of everyone else.
   
   It is a growing community and incredibly useful. Again, I would totally recommend that you utilise this free learning resource!
   
   
6. Local Mandarin Get Together
   
   My local town has a small community of Native speakers that share their Mandarin with fellow learners. They meet once a month and only speak in Mandarin. This is particularly useful once you have developed some vocab and want to test it out.
   
   Gatherings like these are invaluable if you cannot afford that trip to China just yet.
   
   
   
7. Chinese Movies
   
   Whilst the internet has YouTube and many online streams of Mandarin lessons on. I have to admit, for me YouTube is not a good learning environment and I am easily distracted. I believe the lessons range between brilliant and terrible and you have to find one that suits you...
   
   Nevertheless, for me personally, YouTube does not work. However, films in Chinese will get you used to the accent, pronunciation and the speed of the language, although you may not understand much that is said, the more exposure to hearing Mandarin spoken will develop your speaking and listening skills.
   
   
8. College / School style Lessons
   
   For some reason where I am based, seems to be a lack of this type of course available and when it is, it is purely just passing the same old language qualification, GCSE or A-Level. I have always felt that you should learn what you need to get by, not what you need to pass an exam. Therefore this type of course, although invaluable would set you back substantial money (if you’re no longer in education) and when in a class of up to 20 others, you don't get the one to one time required to really improve.
   
   Whilst a great way of learning and the motivation of learning in a group, I feel that there are better ways to learn Mandarin. Especially more personalised speed of learning, as lessons are very rudimentary, and can therefore get boring and stuck in a routine. Learning a language should be for fun and for your own enjoyment when you are motivated to learn.
   
   
9. One on One teaching
   
   An expensive but fruitful way of learning. But one that will be suited to your speed of learning and will not have a set syllabus like the lessons that you may find at schools or colleges. And the teacher will be able to spend a lot of time on the things that you personally want or need to develop upon.
   
   
10. Go to China
    
    The best way to learn any Language is being immersed in it, and thrown in at the deep end learning everything and anything around you. It is probably the best way, but again expensive. For me personally, the allure of a trip to China is huge, but I want to have the basics in place first. Certainly to be able to read a little before I go is essential as I want to be included in my trip to China, not a tourist peering into a new World.
    
    There are so many other helpful resources and over time, I hope to get a large list of resources that people can utilise in their discovering of the Mandarin language.
    
    Please feel free to give me links to other sites here, and I will have a look around, and include them here.
    
    
    
    
    Charlie
    
    

The English Football Premier League's bid to expand is well placed with a new deal that will see matches broadcast on free to air television, by Guangdong TV. This move sees football moving into China (the world’s most populated country), aiming to dislodge the NBA as the biggest sport industry in China.

Many Premier League executives arrived in Beijing for the Asia Trophy. Pay TV group WinTV currently own the rights to all premier football matches and have done since 2007. Although the Premier League failed to convince one of the top four clubs to appear in the Asia Trophy Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham and Hull City join the local side Beijing Guoan in the competition.

Manchester United played a friendly in Hangzhou on Sunday and other clubs have also targeted China as a priority for long-term growth. The move to bring broadcasts free will see much more of the population watching the lucrative sport, with the Premier League hoping for replication of the success they have enjoyed elsewhere in the world.

News Source:
Guardian

Presidents of Taiwan and China exchanged telegrams today for the first time in 60 years, in the latest sign of their thawing relations. President Ma Ying-jeou received a message of congratulation from Chinese President Hu Jintao following the former's election as chairman of the Kuomintang, party officials said yesterday.

Ma won Sunday's election as the sole candidate with 93.87 percent of the vote with a turnout of 57.79 percent of the 533,000 eligible voters.

Today the two presidents Hu Jintao and Taiwan's Ma Ying-jeou exchanged messages, which hope to improve relations between the distanced island, despite the anti-Beijing sentiment in Taiwan.

Beijing still claims sovereignty over Taiwan, which has been self-ruled since Chiang Kai-shek fled there following his defeat in the civil war in 1949. China has previously warned it could use force if Taipei pursued formal independence.

"I hope our two parties can continue to promote peaceful cross-strait development, deepen mutual trust, bring good news to compatriots on both sides and create a revival of the great Chinese race," Hu said in his telegram.

Ma replied he hoped Taiwan and China could "value reality, establish mutual confidence, set disputes aside and achieve a double-win situation."

Ma was elected president in spring last year on a platform of improving relations with China and because of widespread dissatisfaction with the ruling Democratic People's party. He has signed landmark trade deals, and now starting to build bridges with President Hu.

News Source:
Guardian

Chinese State media will now reach an extra 300 million people, having started a 24-hour Arabic language channel. CCTV will now be broadcast in 22 Arabic-speaking countries in Africa and the Middle East having started on Saturday 26th July.

Jiao Li, president of China Central television, said, "The launch of the Channel is a great step forward in the process of strengthening CCTV's international communications capacity. The channel, covering 22 Mideast countries and nearly 300 million people, will greatly enhance our global influence."

This news also comes just after the announcement of the first Chinese daily newspaper being released in Africa. Both these forms of media are a part of China's growing media influence, and helping the world understand what is going in within China.

The húlúsī (葫芦丝) is a Chinese flute like instrument made from the gourd of the cucurbit plant. The hulusi is so named from húlú; a gourd and sī meaning silk.

This instrument is made of up to four bamboo pipes, which include brass or silver reeds, and is enclosed by a wind chamber. The Dai people also know the hulusi as the bilangdao. Often only one bamboo pipe will be used for the drone, whilst one is just for ornamental value.

The hulusi sounds similar to a clarinet and is often described as “hauntingly beautiful”. The soft tone makes it an ideal solo instrument, and is often used to accompany a singing voice.

The hulusi was originally used primarily in the Yunnan province by the Dai and other non-Han ethnic groups but is now played throughout China, and hulusi are manufactured in northern cities such as Tianjin.




There's a touching legend about the cucurbit flute among the Dai people. It is said that in the remote past, a young man of the Dai minority saved his sweetheart from a mountain flood by holding a big bottle gourd and rushing through the turbulent waves. His unswerving loyalty to love touched the Buddha, who inserted bamboo pipes into a gold bottle gourd and gave it to the brave man.

Holding up the gold bottle gourd, the man played beautiful music. All of a sudden, the torrential flood retreated, flowers came out and peacocks were spreading their tails. All things on earth seemed to be sending their good wishes to the lovers. Ever since then, the hulusi has been passed down from generation to generation among the Dai people.

The Dai people are versatile and skilled in singing and dancing. During festivals, they sing songs to the accompaniment of intoxicating hulusi tunes and the music can be heard everywhere. Popular hulusi pieces include Phoenix Tail Bamboo Under Moonlight & Deep within a Bamboo Forest. I include some examples below for you.





Photo Sources:

Flickr: mtbl
Flickr: laurajcole

This is a quick guide through the minefield that can be using chopsticks. This is a beginers guide to learning the do's and don'ts of Chinese chopstick etiquette. There are many types of Chopsticks which range from disposable wooden ones at Chinese take-aways and restaurants, Re-usable Bamboo Chopsticks right through to the higher standard, though harder to use Porcelain Chopsticks. You could also buy an entire chopstick set to get you started. The choice is yours, however the etiquette is fairly standard.

“Chopsticks are one of the reasons the Chinese never invented custard” Spike Milligan

11: Do not dig under food to get the best pieces. It is also considered bad manners to change the food you have selected after you have touched the food.

12: It is bad manners to spear food with the points of the chopsticks as if they were a fork.

13: It is bad manners to pull the dishes towards you using the chopsticks. Always pick the dishes up or move them by hand.

14: Do not lick, suck or nibble the ends of chopsticks.

15: Do not reach across another person with your chopsticks.

16: Do not eat food directly from the central plate; transfer it to your bowl first.

17: Do not eat with a broken or mismatched pair of chopsticks. If one chopstick does break or cannot be eaten with, take a new pair, not just one to replace it. The Chinese are very superstitious and like things in pairs.

18: Also do not use chopsticks as drumsticks, similar to the rule above, Chinese believe all good things come in twos. Therefore, by separating chopsticks between hands you are disturbing the peace.

19: Do not use chopsticks as hair accessories. The hair accessories are completely different from chopsticks meant for eating. You would look silly with an ornamental fork stuck in your hair...

20: Do not duel with chopsticks; again, they are for eating, and not fighting.


So you best get practising with your chopsticks and your newly learnt etiquette rules. Best of Luck and most of all enjoy your new chopstick eating experience.

Photo Sources:
FlickR:AidanMorgan
Flickr:Hsing
JustHungry

There are three things that makes Mandarin hard to learn for westerners, and these three seem to be the biggest reasons that put people off learning Mandarin or as it is in Chinese pinyin Pǔtōnghuà ('common speech').

1. The Look of Romanised Pinyin
For English speaking people who are not as willing to learn, the Romanised pinyin uses many characters that are barely used in the English language the majority of the time. Many people are dismissive over lots of Z, X, Y and J’s as looking the same. This of course is nonsense but is a major hurdle for those learning to get over.

2. There is No Alphabet
Instead there are thousands of separate characters, used to represent the syllables. Knowledge of about 3,000 characters enables you to read about 99% of the characters used in Chinese newspapers and magazines. To read Chinese literature, technical writings or Classical Chinese though, you need to be familiar with at least 6,000 characters.

Every character is given exactly the same amount of space, no matter how complex it is. There are no spaces between characters and the characters which make up multi-syllable words are not grouped together, so when reading Chinese, you not only have to work out what the characters mean and how to pronounce them, but also which characters belong together.

The largest Chinese dictionaries include about 56,000 characters, but most of them are archaic, obscure or rare variant forms.

3. Intonation of Words

Western languages are very simple in the way that they are spoken, with a fairly open intonation where you can change the way you say something on your mood. Mandarin demands that you have the proper intonation of words, otherwise you could end up calling your mother a horse, as many Chinese syllables have four or more other meanings depending on the tone that you use.

Chinese Mandarin has 5 different possible tones that each syllable can be said with. This is briefly depicted in my pinyin vowel chart where intonations are represented by the 'accents' placed above them in the pinyin Romanisation.

There are many homophones in Mandarin; this is words that sound the same in terms of both syllable and intonation. These homophones are usually paired with other syllables to make words and phrases that are understood in context, and when written have their own syllables.

There are about 1,700 possible syllables in Mandarin, which compares with over 8,000 in English. As a result, there are many homophones - syllables that sound the same but mean different things. These are distinguished by the tone they are spoken with and in written Chinese by using different characters for each homophone.


Put the hours in to recognise the Chinese Language and break the mystery;
To clear this trickiness up, when you start to learn and religiously decide to put the time into learning this language, the words become clearer and the more you use it the easier it becomes to distinguish between words, syllables and sentences. The characters themselves are also recognisable the more you use them.

Please give mandarin a go, and leave comments here about your experiences.

Picture Source:
FlickR

A panda at Wolong national nature reserve in Sichuan province, China, called You You has given birth today to the first ever IVF panda cub named LuLu.

Artificial insemination is commonly used for breeding pandas. In 2006 there were 30 cubs born from donor sperm. However, using panda sperm that has been frozen earlier - instead of from an immediate donor - had not been successful before.