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Week 7: Figures

大家好！ This week we learned….  NUMBERS! which is my weakest topic among all. I dont know, my brain picks up things like these really really slowly. BUT lucky for me, I had a head start (thanks to kindergarten). So I am pretty okay when it comes to numbers. Basically, I already know numbers from 0 till 9 really well and I can grasp the concept of numbers quite fast too :D Besides numbers, we learned about dates :D like, birthdate and what's the date today (things like that) to ask about the date, we go; 几月几号？ (jintian, ji yue ji hao) or 几号？ (ji hao) to specifically ask for a certain date, just add it infront. e.g; 你的生日几月几号？ (ni de shengri ji yue ji hao?) translation: when is your birthday? 今天几月几号？ (jintian ji yue ji hao?) translation: what is the date today? to state the date, we go; (number) 年 (number) 月 (number) 号 eg; 22nd June 1994 一九九四 年 六 月 二十二 号 Note: for months, we just add the number of the month infront of 月 (yue) 一月 - January 二月 - Feb...
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Week 6: Family

大家好！ 你们好吗？ Hahahah ^_^ So I have learnt a lot from the past few mandarin classes. And for this week, we learnt 'FAMILY MEMBERS" or 我的家人 (wo de jia ren). to state the numbers of your family members, you say; 我的家有( number of family member)  口人。 Translation: My family member have (number) people. Basic family members: 爸爸(baba)- Father 妈妈 (mama)- Mother 哥哥 (Gege)- elder brother 姐姐 (Jiejie)- elder sister 妹妹 (Meimei)- younger sister 弟弟 (Didi)- younger brother 我的家有六口人。爸爸，妈妈，妹妹，弟弟， 奶奶 ，还有我。 *奶奶 (nainai) means grandmother on my father's side. The name for each family member in mandarin is very specific. There is a difference between the family on the mother's side and the family on the father's side. This is due to the system where men can carry their family name while women cannot. i learnt them through here: Family members that sure is a lotttt. hahaha that is all for noww ;D Sabrina 上
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Week 5: Constructing a Better Sentence

大家好! So these are the things I have learnt for this week; 1. Formula for a grammatically correct sentence; subject+time+place+verb+object eg; 他 (subject) 每天 (time) 在 多媒体 大学 (place) 学习 (verb) 汉语 (object)。 (Ta meitian zai Duomeiti daxue xuexi Hanyu) Direct Translation: He everyday at Multimedia University study Mandarin. Translation: He studies Mandarin at Multimedia University everyday. subject and time can change places. subject can go before time OR time can go before subject eg; 每天他上学 ( meitian ta shangxue)＝ 他每天上学 (ta meitian shangxue) Translation: He goes to school everyday 2. A different way of asking; Instead of using the usual 他是你的朋友吗？ you can ask in this kind of sentence too; 他是不是你的朋友吗？ other examples; 你要。。。吗？  你要不要。。。？ (refers to wanting something) 你有。。。吗？  你有没有。。。？ (refers to having something) 你忙吗？              你忙不忙？            (asking if busy or not) 你吃鸡饭吗？  ...
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Week 4: Writing Exercise (self)

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大家好！ So I realised how I am quite okay when it comes to speaking and pronouncing mandarin words. However, I am the WORST when it comes to reading and writing! How did I realise that? Well, 老师 gave us a writing quiz to do at home. I realised how I could only read around 40% of the whole quiz and can only write 10% of the answers without referring from anywhere! So I thought to myself, I should do something on my own to increase my reading and writing skills. Therefore, here is what I have done so far! 1) I bought an exercise books with medium sized boxes so that I can practice my strokes when writing Chinese characters. based on this exercise, I am able to write these Chinese characters; 你， 我，好，不，也，他，朋友，吗，很，的， 是， 呢 That is not much but it is a good progress! Snapshots of what I have been doing: Video of me writing some of the words I have learnt: (aaa I realised I wrote 很 wronglyyy. but sokay. hahah) 2) I started playing "Infinite Chinese...
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Week 3: Conversations

大家好！ So today we learned a few conversational phases that is useful for beginners who would like to start conversing in mandarin. We learned; 1. Greetings 2. Introducing in greetings, we learned how to greet someone formally and casually. 您 (nin) and   你 (ni) have the same meaning which is "you". 你 (ni) is only used when greeting casually like your friends or people younger than you. e.g. 你 好 吗？ (ni hao ma?)= How are you? 您 (nin) is used when greeting a stranger or someone older than you (show respect). e.g. 您 好 (nin hao)= Hello *note: you do not say " 你 好 吗? " towards a stranger. it is weird. other than 你好 and 你好吗 ？, other greetings includes; 早上好 ＝ good morning 下午好 = good afternoon 晚上好 ＝ good evening in "introducing yourself" we learnt how to introduce your surname, name and nationality. =Name= formally, you do not straight away ask; 你 叫 什么 名字？ (ni jiao shenme mingzi?)= what is your name? That is very informal ^ instea...
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Week 2: Online Class

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大家好！(Da jia hao) Hello, everybody! So for this week which is on Monday, we had an online class. We had to watch videos and write a summary based on it.  So here is my summary on the videos.  1. The first video explains on how the chinese characters come into place. The come from the bone oracle script which is also known as the 甲骨文   (Jia Gu Wen).  2. Pinyin consists of:- initial final tone source: http://www.meetmandarin.com/articles/chinese-pronunciation-guide.html 3. To write Chinese characters 汉子 (Hanzi), is from top to bottom, left to right. 4. Combining two different syllables to get a new character with it's own meaning: 日rì= Sun 月yuè= Moon 日＋月＝明 míng (bright/brilliant) explanation: Sun is brightest in the day, Moon is brightest in the night. Add together, you will get BRIGHT (aka brilliant) 5. All Chinese characters are monosyllable (one sound for one characters). 3000-4000 mandarin characters are needed to be know...
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Week 1 Task: A letter to yourself

亲爱的 Sabrina, (Qin ai de Sabrina,) Direct translation: Close love's Sabrina, Proper Translation: Dear Sabrina, So listen up, sister. You've got only 6 weeks to go from zero to a master in Mandarin. Okay, master is just too much. Probably a decent mandarin speaker? Yea, let's go with that. 6 weeks to go from zero to a decent mandarin speaker. A proper planning is needed. So this skill will be divided by 2 parts; speaking and reading. Below are my plans; Speaking - Use the hello chinese app this app is pretty cool tbh. -speak to my friends in mandarin replace as many mandarin words that i know in my normal english convo.  do not be afraid to ask  " 这是什么? (zhe shi shenme?) " Direct translation: This is what? Proper translation: What is this? -videos tons of videos on youtube. that might help me Reading -memorising and rewriting - read mandarin books for kindergarteners level So much to do! So I guess I just have to work real...
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