Welcome to crouchingtiger22's Mandarin Chinese: Lesson 3.

In This Section We'll Cover:

• The Importance of Word Order
• Ways to Remember Tones
• Combining Everything So Far
• Reviewing

The Importance of Word Order

Word order is crucial, but some lenience is allowed.

Things like "Ni3 qu4 nar3?¹" is a good example. Remember that the question word goes in the place of the answer. So "Ni3 nar3 qu4²" is completely wrong.

Ways to Remember Tones

A way to remember tones in called "Mnemonics". This pairs a word in Mandarin with an image.

• 1st tone = transcendent, helpful, simplicity.

I love words that have the first tone because of their simplicity and how easy they are to sing out and pronounce correctly.

• 2nd tone = insecure, unsure, questioning.

I sympathize with words that have the second tone because I’ve been unsure and insecure myself. I don’t blame them for sounding like questions.

• 3rd tone = mischievous, mean-spirited, illusive.

Like a bird you’re trying to watch but he dives into the water and pops up where you aren’t looking. I hate words with the third tone. They take more work and more time to pronounce. They change depending on the words near them. They seem to exist only to make my life more difficult.

• 4th tone = angry, demanding, impatient.

I also like words that have the fourth tone because I can shout them out. These words give me a chance to vent.

• Shaozi2 = spoon

To remember the tone I had to make a visual image of a spoon handle sticking out of a bowl of soup rising at the same angle as the second tone rises.

• Fei1ji1 = airplane

This one was easy, because a plane flies high; doesn't it?

Combining Everything So Far

At this stage you're probably wondering where you're going with all of this, but think of what you've learnt so far:

• New Vocab
• Tones
• Grammar
• A way to remember tones
• Syntax (word order)
• And even MORE!

Reviewing

Combine everything you've learnt so far; and speak to yourself in Mandarin. Don't worry if this seems impossible; because it WILL get easier. Remember to watch movies in Mandarin. This will help with a Chinese accent and possibly new vocab.

I watched a movie on the 18th of February because I was bored; and the only thing on TV was a movie called "Zhou Yu's Train"; and I learned new vocab. I was able to understand a lot of the dialogue as well. Other movies I'd recommend would be:

• Ye4 Yan4 The Banquet
• Shi2 Mian4 Mai2 Fu4 House of Flying Daggers
• Wo4hu3 Cang2long2 Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Make sure they're in Mandarin and not in Cantonese first ;)

Related Pages

• Hanzi
• Chinese
• Pronunciation

Backlinks