Friday, May 09, 2008

Fun Chinese Sentences

My teacher is full of fun Chinese sentences. Here are some samples.

2-3 (3-3)
老闆 (小姐) 你好請你給我啤酒. 沒有啤酒只有小姐.
Lao3ban3 (xiao3jie3) ni3 hao3 qing3ni3 gei3wo3 pi2jiu3. Mei2you3 pi2jiu3 zhi3you3 xiao3jie3.
Hello boss (miss), please give me some beer. We don't have beer, only ladies.

When two 3rd tone words are next to each other, the first one changes to second tone. So use this sentence to get your 2-3 tones down.

4-3
下午下雨最好跳舞.日本電影
xia4wu3 xia4yu3 zui4hao3 tiao4wu3. ri4ben3dian4ying3
This afternoon it's raining so it's best for us to go dancing. Japanese movie.

The 4-3 word pair comes out with the second word only having the low end of the dropping tone of 3rd tone without rising up again. Make sure to go very low!

3-2
美國有錢,女人很忙...
mei3 guo2 you3 qian2, nu3 ren2 hen3 mang2...
America is rich, the women* are busy.

The 3-2 word pair changes the first word into just a dropping sound, leading into the rise of the second word.

*女人 vs 女生 vs 女的 vs 女性
The first has a sexual connotation. The second is for a student. The third is saying female. The fourth is for saying female gender.

4's
世界運動大會報告
shi4 jie4 yun4 dong4 da4 hui4 bao4 gao4
The Olympics report

1's
今天 媽媽說她發燒. 東方新生擔心...
Jin1 tian1 ma1ma shuo1 ta1 fa1 shao1. Dong1 fang1 xin1 sheng1 dan1 xin1...
Today Mom said she has a fever. Eastern first year students worry...

I can't remember the teacher's so made up my own.

3-2-1
補習班,
bu3xi2ban1

Again, I can't remember the other samples.

Ma
媽媽罵馬,馬罵媽媽.
Ma1ma ma4 ma3, ma3 ma4 ma1ma.
Mom scolds the horse, the horse scolds mom.

Shi
事實是事實.
Shi4shi2 shi4 shi4shi2.
The truth is the truth.

The beauty in these last two is that I can actually hear the tone differences and say them correctly, whereas I know that first and second quarter I was still quite tone deaf. Yay for progress!

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