Survival Chinese

Chilin Shih

East Asian Languages and CulturesUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Chinese Geography

Chinese Language

Chinese Banquet Etiquette

Chinese Geography

Chinese Geography

China has 1.3 billion people.

5000 years of history

9.6 million square km of area

Chinese Geography

Modern Chinese population concentrates in the east. The Yellow River valley was the cradle of Chinese civilization.

The Yangtze River is the longest river in Asia. The river basin is home to one-third of Chinese population.

Chinese Geography

Chinese Population Density

Chinese Geography

Forbidden City, Beijing

Great Wall, Beijing

Xi’an

Guilin

Shanghai

Chinese Language

Chinese Language and Dialects

Mandarin is the official standard language of China. Though China is well-known for language diversity.

There are many dialects such as Cantonese and Shanghainese.

Chinese Dialect Map

Chinese Writing System

The Chinese writing system consists of more than 40,000 characters

A typical college students know about 3000-5000 characters

Chinese Writing System

Some characters retain the ancient pictographic design.

Some are created with whimsical combination.

sun carmoon horse

ri4 yue4 ming2

sun moon bright

mu4 lin2 sen1

tree woods forest

Chinese Writing System

Most of the Chinese characters are actually sound-based, with a component indicating the sound and another the meaning category.

question marker

mother scold

weightant

agate

horse

ma

ma3ma1

ma3

ma4

ma3

ma3

Chinese Writing System

In a traditional Chinese book, the characters are written vertically and are read from right to left.

Chinese Writing System

In modern books Chinese characters can be aligned horizontally and are read from left to right. This layout is commonly used for scientific articles where English words are often included.

Chinese Tones

Ma1: mother

Ma2: hemp

Ma3: horse

Ma4: to scold

Chinese is a tone language. Different tones, or pitch contours, change the meaning of the word.

Chinese Tones

Ma1-ma0 ma4 ma3. Mother scolds the horse.

Ma3 ma4 ma1-ma0. The horse scolds mother.

Pinyin – A Romanization System

Pinyin is a Romanization

system—a spelling aid using

Latin alphabet to annotate

the pronunciation of Chinese

characters

Pinyin – Vowels

a, e, i, o, u, ü

Pinyin uses these letters for

16 vowel sounds. The

pronunciation changes with

context, though generally,

say them as if you are singing

Italian songs.

Pinyin examples

bi, ba, bu

di, da, du

ga, gu

bei, bai

ban, bang

puo, pong

pi, pa, pu

ti, ta, tu

ka, ku

sa, su

pin, ping

ma, na, la

Pinyin examples

q = ch

x = sh (say them with a

smile!)

j = gee

zh = jr with the tongue

curled

qing wen May I ask, pleasexie xie Thank you

Beijing Beijing

Zhong guo China

Banquet Etiquette

Banquets serve important

social functions in China.

Friendship is strengthened

and political and business

decisions were typically

made during banquets.

Place Setting

Seating Arrangement

The seat facing the door is

the honored seat for the

guest of honor.

The host sits opposite to the

guest of honor.

Host

Guest

Dishes are served together

in a casual gathering.

Casual Banquet

In a formal banquet, dishes

are served sequentially.

There may be ten to twelve

courses, starting with

appetizers and ending with a

soup.

The Appetizer

The host will make a toast and

welcome everyone.

Gan bei!

This means bottom up.

Then the host will invite

everyone to start.

The honored guest is served first.

This custom is enthusiastically

followed for the first few courses.

The honored guest usually makes

a toast to the host when the

second dish is served. After that,

every one can initiate a toast to

individual or to the whole group.

There may be many rounds of

toast during the course of the

meal.

When touching glasses, raise

your glass to a height that

reflects the social ranking.

When toasting to your boss

or senior, keep the rim of

your glass a bit lower.

The host is responsible for

ordering. It is an art to find

the perfect combination and

sequence to bring out the

optimal culinary experience.

There may be chicken, duck,

beef, pork and seafood,

alternating with vegetable

dishes.

Only half way through.

Enjoy each dish slowly. The

host will be happy if you

sample every thing.

Looking for a conversation

topic?

Ask about the dishes. Many

dishes have interesting

stories behind them.

Is the fish head pointing at

you? Then it is your turn to

drink.

The word fish sounds the

same as having more

resources.

During New Year, we always

leave some fish in the plate to

signify a resourceful and

abundant coming year.

The Soup

The soup is served at the

end of the meal.

Afterwards, there may be

fruit and/or a simple dessert.

We will return for four modulesof survival Chinese:•Greetings: Meng Liu •Shopping: Huang-Lan Su•Place names: Lingling Yao•Daily necessities: Di Wendy Wu

We have a webpage for you withvocabulary , sound recordings and handout. There are also links to nursery rhymes, poems and songs.

http://faculty.las.illinois.edu/cls/SurvivalChinese