Zhi-Juan Guo

There are four tones in Mandarin, five if you counted the soft tone. In the first year of primary school, all children are taught this little poem to help memorize the four tones:

一声平，Yīshēng píng, the first tone (is) flat.

二声扬，Èr shēngyáng, the second tone rises.

三声拐弯，Sān shēng guǎiwān, the third tone turns (first it goes down then it goes up).

四声降。Sì shēng jiàng, the fourth tone falls down.

The first tone is flat, even, and long. It could sound pleasant, like the word for “mom” 妈妈 Māma, you feel happy and pleasant when you call out this name; and it comes out long and even. The second 妈 is soft toned. Just as it’s named, the tone is soft and short.

The second tone rises up. It sounds like you are surprised. It’s shorter compared to the first tone. 麻 má, meaning “hemp, flax, cannabis, or numbness, tingling”, it goes up and the sound is short.

The third tone first goes down then goes up, and like the first tone, it’s long. The word for “horse”,马 mǎ, is the third tone.

The fourth tone goes down, and like the second tone, it’s short. 骂 mà, to scold, sounds sharp and short.

And here is a tongue twister to help you learn the tones: 妈妈骑马，马慢，妈妈骂马 (Māma qímǎ, mǎ màn, māma mà mǎ.) Mom rides a horse, horse (is) slow, mom scolds the horse.

The Chinese alphabet, 拼音 Pīnyīn, was developed in the 1950s and was based on the Latin alphabet. The sounds are similar too: if you were already familiar with the Latin alphabet, you could spell out “pīnyīn” tolerably well even if you had never learned it. In fact this was demonstrated by a seven-year old New York boy after just one lesson. To his surprise and delight, he found out he could read “pīnyīn” without help or hesitation.

There are two letters in Chinese alphabet that might be confusing when used as initials in pīnyīn:

“W” as an initial pronounces as “u”.

“Y” as an initial pronounces as “i”.

This ends the third lesson. Have fun learning!

Here is the audio material for this lesson:

In this lesson, we are going to learn how to ask someone’s name.

你叫什么名字？Nǐ jiào shénme míngzì?

“You (are) called what name?”, to put it literally.

Here’s how it breaks down:

你 nǐ from 你好 means “you”, and 我 wǒ means “I”.

叫 jiào with the mouth part(口) on the left means “to call, to be called, to shout, to yell”.

什么 shénme means “what”.

名字 míngzì means “name”. In 名, again you see the mouth particle (口) on the lower right, on the upper left is the character for dim, darkness (夕): 名, to name oneself, to put oneself out of the dimness and into the light. 字 character, title, as in ancient China, it’s common to have an additional name, a title besides the commonly used one.

Here’s how you would respond:

我叫郭志娟。Wǒ jiào guōzhì juān.

“I (am) called Guo Zhi Juan.”

郭 Guō is the family name, and it comes first. This is a strong indication of an important factor of Chinese, or Asian culture: family, the collective, nation, comes before the individual.

志 zhì is the character chosen by this particular generation, and it is adapted to everyone’s name in this generation within the family: my brother and all my cousins on my father’s side have this character in their names.

Chinese people typically choose name characters that imply goodness, beauty, different types of virtues for their children’s names. 志, with a person(士: scholar, gentleman, soldier) on the upper side and a heart (心) on the lower side, means “purpose, will, determination”.

娟 juān is the second character in the given name(a given name could be one character, though more often than not it’s two), on the left side is 女, female; and on the right side, the upper side is mouth 口, and the lower side is moon 月. The character means “graceful, beautiful, moonlike”, and it is almost always a female’s name. There is a well-known line written by one of the most famous Chinese poets 苏轼: “千里共婵娟” which means “thousands of miles look up at the same moon”.

In the western world, you typically pick up a name for the new born baby from the names that have been there thousands of years. And many of the names—“Adam” and “Mary”— have a biblical background. In China, however, there do not (though you certainly could) choose from a “list of names”. You choose names from the wide range of Chinese characters. Technically, you could choose any character, or the combination of any two characters to name your child, though of course you generally choose good-meaning, nice-sounding characters instead of otherwise, popular male’s names could be 勇 (courage), 明 (smart, bright), 伟 (greatness)….and popular female’s name could be 春(spring), 霞 (sunset clouds), 菲 (fragrance)….

毛泽东 Máozédōng, arguably the most well known Chinese name in the world, follows the same rule. 毛 is the family name. 泽, with three drops of water (water radical 氵) on the left, could mean “marsh, swamp” or “to benefit”, 东 means “east”.

习近平 Xíjìnpíng，习xí, here a family name, means “to practice, to try”. It vividly illustrates this meaning by the two wings (丶㇀). It comes from the image of new birds—the fledglings—open their wings and learn to fly. 近 jìn means “close, to approach”, and 平 píng means “flat, equal, justice”. So the given name means “approaching justice” which gives you an idea of the parents’ expectation when they named their child.