Lesson 4- learning to write family members in Hanzi

Chinese characters- otherwise known as Hanzi (汉字）- is composed in a square box starting from the left to right and top to bottom.

Today you will learn to write some of the core family members in Hanzi

Papa- 爸爸- bà  ba

Mama- 妈妈- mā  ma

younger brother- 弟弟- dì  di

older brother- 哥哥- gē  ge

younger sister- 妹妹- mèi  mei

Older sister- 姐姐- mèi  mei

Activities：

Practice writing the family members using the following grid paper- you can save the image and print it out

Lesson 3- learning some iconic Aussie cultural things in pinyin

G Day all, since I am from the land down under, this lesson is all about using those pinyin that you have learnt from the past two lessons and to pronounce some Aussie icons. This will enable you to start building up a range of various cultural vocabularies.

Kangaroo- 袋鼠- dài shǔ

Koala- 考拉- kǎo  lā

Australia- 澳大利亚- ào  dà  lì  yà

Great Barrier Reef- 大堡礁- dà  bǎo  jiāo 

Crocodile- 鳄鱼- è  yú

Rugby- 橄榄球- gǎn  lǎn  qiú




For activities practice speaking the above phrases then fill in the blanks with pinyin below

1. kangaroo-
2. koala-
3. Australia-
4. Great Barrier Reef-
5. crocodile-
6. rugby-

Lesson 2: Learning the all important inclination and declination in tone - the four sounds

Hello again

This post is all about reinforcing the fact that the four sounds must be mastered before Mandarin can be fully understood.

The slight difference in the tone of the word can lead to a completely different meaning.

For Mandarin there are four sounds and are found on top of all vowels.

Examples:

1st sound is leveled 

2nd sound is inclined

3rd sound (ATTENTION) is in decline and then incline - this is the most challenging sound for non-Mandarin speakers to master. 

Fourth sound is declined. 

Allow this video to give you an insight- 

Follow the pronunciation and repeat as many times as you need until you feel comfortable

For practice, pronounce all the vowels in these four sounds. Repeat until you feel comfortable, especially with the 3rd Sound.

Lesson 1: Basic vowels and consonants

Today's lesson will introduce the basic vowels and consonants found within Mandarin.

The following video demonstrates the sounds of these vowels and consonants

Vowels:

a, (ah)
o, (oh)
e, (sounds like the french Le, but no L sound)
 i, (ee)
u, (oo)
ü, (yuuuu)

Consonants

b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, j, q, x, z, c, s, zh, ch, sh, r, y, w

Consonant table 

For practice, try to memorise the pronunciation of both the vowels and consonants. If in doubt, refer back to the video for guidance.

Hello, 你好 （nihao), welcome to Mandarin learning

Hello to all Mandarin students and learners:


The aim of this blog is to help all of you Mandarin learners to quickly grasp the basics of Mandarin as well as developing a basic knowledge of the Chinese character (Hanzi) and building up a pool of vocabulary that are useful in everyday situations.

Each blog post will include some form of interactive resource (video, GIF images or other media) and will follow with some kind of activities where the knowledge learnt from those resources can be practiced over and over again.

The main point is to learn while having fun.