Mark Zegarelli
Mark Zegarelli

Looking Forward

Words in Chinese

In Chapter 1, you learned that some Chinese words include two, three, or even four characters. For example:

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

出口

chū kǒu

exit

 

Here's an important word for anyone learning to write Chinese:

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

中国

zhōng guó

China

 

This word literally means "middle country." From here, it's a short walk to another indispensable three-character word: literally, "middle country person":

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

中国人

zhōng guó rén

Chinese person

 

And here's another two-character word you'll use every day:

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

一点

yì diǎn

a little

 

Before moving on, notice that in this word, 一is pronounced rather than . Tone changes like these occur from time to time in Mandarin, usually based on the tone of the character that follows.

 

If you're married, or know someone who is, you'll also find this word useful:

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

太太

tài tai

wife

 

Before moving on, notice here that the Mandarin pronunciation of 太太 is tài tai, with non-tonal second syllable. This negation of the final tone in words with more than one character is quite common, and I'll point it out as it occurs.

 

Here's another example: This word literally means "big person":

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

大人

dà ren

adult

 

As in the previous example, the final tone of 大人 drops out of the Mandarin pronunciation dà ren.

 

If you do happen to be an adult, you'll probably need this word to describe how you spend a lot of your days:

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

工作

gōng zuò

 job, to work

 

This next word literally means "thousand years":

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

千年

qián nián

millennium

 

Here's another useful word made from two characters you learned in this chapter. It technically means "left right," which may help you to remember its meaning:

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

左右

zuǒ yòu

approximately, more or less

 

These next two words are related. Although the characters 上 and 下 usually refer to positions in space – roughly "above" and "below" – they can also mean "before" and "after." To keep these clear in my head, I picture a day-planning calendar, where the time "above noon" means "morning," and the time "below noon" means "afternoon":

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

上午

shàng wǔ

before noon, late morning

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

下午

xià wǔ

afternoon

 

Here's a common word made from three characters that are all easy to write:

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

一个人

yí gè ren

alone

 

In this word, again you can see two tone changes: first, 一 is pronounced instead of , and second that the tone in人 is dropped.

 

Additionally, in Chinese, numbers greater than 10 are built using a relatively small set of characters, many of which you already know. For example:

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

十一

shí yī

eleven (11)

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

十二

shí èr

twelve (12)

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

十三

shí sān

thirteen (13)

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

十八

shí bā

eighteen (18)

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

二十

èr shí

twenty (20)

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

三十

sān shí

thirty (30)

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

八十

bā shí

eighty (80)

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

一百

yì bǎi

one hundred (100)

 

Word

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

二百

èr bǎi

two hundred (200)

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

三千

sān qiān

three thousand (3,000)

 

Character

Mandarin Pronunciation

Meaning in English

八千三百二十一

bā qiān sān bǎi èr shí yī

eight thousand three hundred twenty one (8,321)

 

As you can see, the rules for building multiple-character words for large numbers are relatively regular. When you know the individual characters for these words, even the largest and most complicated number is easy to write in Chinese.