My Mandarin Journey 我的部落格

Date  : 29/04/2018 Time : 8:30 a.m. I learned about how to greet people and asking for their nationality.One of interesting things to know about is how to pronounce countries国家们 name in Chinese.Here are few videos that laoshi(老师) recommend and some from youtube. This is the one laoshi(老师) recommends us in online learning. This one is also interesting to be watched.I had many fun watching these videos. Some of country name that is common to me is : 中国 (zhong guo) -》 China 日本 (ri ben) -> Japan 美国 (mei guo) - > America 韩国 (han guo) -> South Korea 马来西亚 (ma lai xi ya) -> Malaysia 因都 （yin du）-> India 泰国 （tai guo）-> Thailand 应国 (ying guo) -> UK 发国(fa guo) -> France 新加坡(xin jia po) -> Singapore Till we met again.再见！

One of the online class assignment is to create a simple greeting video.Here are mine ! Hope all of you enjoy watching my simple video.

Date : 26/04/2018 Time : 7:45 p.m. This week only have one face to face class and two online classes. In classes we learned more about greetings.

Date : 21/04/2018 Time : 2:34 a.m. Here are some basic greetings that I learnt in class and the meaning. ni hao / nin hao - hello - 你好 ni hao ma ? - how are you ? - 你好吗？ wo hen hao - I am very good - 我很好 ni ne ? - how about you ? - 你呢？ xie xie - thank you - 谢谢 bu ke qi - you are welcome - 不可欺 zai jian - good bye - 在建 wo ye hen hao - I am also good too - 我也很好  shi - yes - 是 bu shi - no - 不是 wo hao - I am good - 我好 hai hao - still okay - 还好 mamahuhu - so-so - 马马虎虎

Date : 20/04/2018 Time : 08:57 a.m. In this week , here are the things that I learned. 1 . Pinyin We learned a little bit more detail about pin yin after online class. Choo lao shi (老师) explains about how the pinyin is pronounced and the difference in each of the slightly similar pronounced pinyin letter. 2 . Greetings - wenhou (问候) Choo lao shi (老师) teaches us basic greetings such as hello（你好） and how to start a conversation in Chinese.Example of the conversations learnt are : A : siti xiaojie ,  ni hao. B : ni hao ma ? A : wo hen hao . ni ne? B : wo ye hen hao. A : tai hao le ! zai jian 3 . Chinese Characters We learned about Chinese characters such as it's origin , how to build the characters , type of characters , type of strokes available and many more.And I also got to practice a lot of new basic characters that is commonly used in daily life. 

Date : 18/04/18 Time : 8:39 a.m. The picture is the number in Chinese. Picture below is the number that is indicated by hand gesture.It is used when people travelling to different region in China because some places uses slightly different word to pronounce number or different slang.

Date : 17/04/2018 Time : 9:52 a.m. Today I will be posting about one of mandarin song that I like.I watched this movie called The Myth starring Jackie Chan and Kim Hee Sun. It is a great movie that has romance,action,tragedy and as usual , superb acting from the actors and actresses. Apparently this movie has a good OST titled Endless Love. It is a good sad sang love song that is sung beautifully. Here are the lyrics. mèng 梦 zhōng 中 de 的 rén 人 shú xī 熟悉 de 的 liǎn 脸 kǒng 孔 nǐ 你 shì 是 wǒ 我 shǒu hòu 守候 de 的 wēn rǒu 温柔 jiù suàn 就算 lèi shuǐ 泪水 yān mò 淹没 tiān dì 天地 wǒ 我 bú 不 huì 会 fàng shǒu 放手 měi yī 每一 kè 刻 gū dú 孤独 de 的 chén shòu 承受 zhǐ 只 yīn 因 wǒ 我 céng 曾 xǔ xià chéng nuò 许下承诺 nǐ 你 wǒ 我 zhī jiān 之间 shú xī 熟悉 de 的 gǎn dòng 感动 ài 爱 jiù 就 yào 要 sū xǐng 苏醒 wàn shì 万世 cāng sāng 沧桑

Date : 16/04/2018 Time : 9.50 a.m. This weekend , one of my friends will be having her birthday. I am planning to sing her birthday song in mandarin.It consists of two phrases and repeated like traditional English song.I learned it from this  link . zhù nǐ shēng rì kuài lè zhù nǐ shēng rì kuài lè zhù nǐ shēng rì kuài lè zhù nǐ yǒngyuǎn kuài lè  祝 (zhù) means "wish" or "express good wishes". 祝你 (zhù nǐ) means "wishing you."  快樂 (in traditional form) / 快乐 (simplified form) (kuài lè) can be preceded by  any happy occasion  such as Christmas (聖誕節快樂 / 圣诞节快乐 / shèng dàn jié kuài lè) o r New Year (新年快樂 / 新年快乐 / xīn nián kuài lè). Here is also a  video  from youtube that I used to practice pronouncing. I will probably do the recording of me singing it so if I do so, I will definitely post it here.

Date : 15/4/2018 Time : 10.50 p.m. From what I learnt ,  Chinese language does not have specific alphabet like how other language such as Malay , Japanese , Arabic and etc was. Facts : Kanji writing in Japanese language is based from Chinese character. Chinese writing is made up of characters that consists of strokes.The chart shows some common strokes that is used in Chinese character. There are also some rules that is used when building up the character. I learned from this  link  and all the picture taken from the site is used for educational purposes. One of character that I learned is : 我  ‘wo’   this character consists of 7 strokes.

Date  :15/04/2018 Time : 9:05 p.m. What I understand about Chinese Pinyin and tone  is that it is how a Chinese character is pronounced Even though the alphabet looks same but it has different tone that indicate different meaning.  Every Chinese character consists of three components - Initial,Final and Tone Initial is the front of word while final is at end of the word.Meanwhile tone is how high or how low a certain part of word is pronounced. Here are the Chinese pinyin chart.

Date : 15/4/2018 Time : 07:23 p.m. This week's class , I learned some new Chinese words.      Hao 好 = good ·      Hen hao 很好 = very good ·      Tai hao le  太好了 = great!/sounds good! ·      Ni hao  你好 = hello ·      Nin hao 您好 = hello (formal) ·      Da jia hao 大家好 = hi everyone ·      Nimen hao 你们好 = hello (plural) ·      Wo shi 我是．．．= i am... ·      Laoshi 老师 = teacher ·      Xihuan 喜欢 = like ·      Dianti 电梯 = elevator ·      手机 shouji = cell phone ·      Shouti dianhua  手提电话 = cell phone  ·      五 点   wu dian  = 5 points ·      Yao Yi dian dian 要一点点   ·      Chi Yi dian dian 吃一点点 P/S : As in now (15/4/18), I still haven't figured out the last two words meaning. So I will ask Choo lao shi tomorrow during class. Next , Lao Shi also introduce us to few websites that may be useful in our learning.      ArchChinese  - This web can help us easily find the meaning of word we need and we can learn to write Mandarin word.      Hel

Date : 15/4/2018 Time : 3.17 p.m. Dear Syawana , By now, you should be aware that you are taking Mandarin class for just 6-7 weeks.Wow , it must be crazy to squeeze everything in this short span ! But I'm sure you can do it. With perseverance and strong will, we can overcame this together. To succeed, you have to at least practice daily.Please focus fully at class to get maximum input from lao shi 老师 . Find new words to enrich your vocab.Ah , don't forget to write it in a notebook. Listening to music and watching Chinese dramas and movies will also help to improve your language.You can watch how they pronounce Chinese words.It might be useful to you. I hope that you won't give up in this.Let's do it! Let's take on this challenge!    挑战 (tiao zhan)! “If your mind is strong, all difficult things will become easy; if your mind is weak, all easy things will become difficult.”