Countries of the World
The Language of The Chinese
Chinese For Kids is an excellent course specializing in Putonghua. Putonghua is Mandarin that most people living in China know. Chinese For Kids is mostly for the age group 9-12.

Before You Start

Chinese is a tonal language. Each tone is represented by dashes. There are four of these tones in Standard Chinese.

The first tone is level.
1st Tone: -

The second tone is rising.
2nd Tone: /

The third tone is falling, then rising.
3rd tone: /

And the fourth tone is falling.
4th Tone:

Note: The fourth tone is quite sharp whereas the first and third tone are naturally long.
When someone speaks to you, do you understand it, or is it filled with constant sounds and noises that you have never heard before? Most of the time you do understand speakers around you, but enough about that. A language that you might not understand is Chinese.

Mandarin is the most popular language, but surprisingly, it is one of the hardest. China uses slashes, dots and lines to create a word. They don’t use an alphabet. One of the most common pictographs is a shape that looks like a curved line. One character or symbol could mean many things. A character that I know could mean me, my and I. I suppose they don’t use nouns and verbs. Another thing that is very fascinating about Mandarin is Pinyin. Pinyin was invented by the Chinese government to help foreigners pronounce Chinese. It is Chinese characters directly translated into English words. Pinyin is written in exactly the way it is supposed to sound. So for people that don’t know Mandarin, they just have to look at a word and say it. But it is not as easy as it sounds.
WEBSITES TO VISIT:

www.chinesepod.com

www.mandarintools.com

www.studentsoftheworld.info (then go to penpals, then China.)

Wanna have some fun?

Check out your Chinese Zodiac online!

There are twelve of these signs.

If you are a rat, you are born in 1972, 1984 or 1996. Note that you add twelve each time.

Oxen are born in 1973, 1985, and 1997.

Tigers are born in 1974, 1986 or 1998.

Rabbits are born in 1975, 1987 or 1999.

Dragons are born in 1976, 1988 or 2000.

Snakes are born in 1977, 1989 or 2001.

Horses are born in 1978, 1990 or 2002.

Sheep are born in 1979, 1991 or 2003.

Monkeys are born in 1980, 1992 or 2004.

Roosters are born in 1981, 1993 or 2005.

Dogs are born in 1982, 1994 or 2006.

Boars are born in 1983, 1995 or 2007.


PICTURES OF FRANCE



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The Language of The Chinese (Countries of the World)    -    Author : Cheyenne and Georgia - China


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last update : 2007-01-21

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