Mandarin anyone??

We have begun our Mandarin lessons. We have a tutor who comes to our home twice a week. Right now lessons are Tuesday and Friday mornings, 2 hours each morning. Andrew, Brendin, Jacq and I are taking the classes. The twins poke their heads in every now again, but they mostly get time to play on their DS's or watch a movie while we are in class. I know they are soaking up what is being taught, even if they dont realize it. They were playing 'ice cream shop' the other day and saying ni hao (hi) and ni hao ma? (how are you?) as they took each others 'orders'. They are also good at counting in Mandarin. Brendin is certainly the one who is excelling, but if you know him, this wont be a surprise. Jacq can only keep her attention going for about an hour then she 'checks out' and gets bored. We get her to sit at the table with us so she can at least hear what is going on, even if she isnt participating. I prefer to read the pinyin (phonetical spelling of Mandarin) but that doesn't help me when I'm out in the community. Andrew is okay with talking, but his tones and pronunciation is sometimes off. 

So, now that we are learning Mandarin, I'm going to 'teach' you some of what we are/have learned. 

First off, you need to know the tones. There are 4 tones, plus  neutral:

• Neutral is when there is no tone. You just say the word. eg: ma
• 1st tone is flat and is depicted by "-" above the end sound or with the number 1 after the word...you start with a higher tone and keep it there eg: ma1
• 2nd tone is low-high and depicted by "/" above the end sound or with the number 2 after the word...you start with a lower pitched tone and raise the tone as you end the word eg: ma2
• 3rd tone is high-low-high and depicted by "v" above the end sound or with the number 3 after the word...you start with a mid-low pitched tone, drop the tone, then raise your tone again eg: ma3 
• 4th tone is high-low and depicted by "\" above the end sound or with the number 4 after the word...you start with a higher pitched tone and drop the tone as you end the word eg: ma4 

Now that you know this, here is something else you need to know...a 'c' usually makes a sound like 'tch', a 'z' is 'tz', 'x' is 'sh'...i think that is it for the weird sounds

Now on to some useful (?) words
1. ni1 hao3 (knee how)                            hello
2. xie4 xie  (shay shay)                        thank you
3. zai4 jian4 (tz-eye jen)                      good bye   
4. xi shou2 jian1 (sh-eye shoe jen)      washroom
5. hen3 hao3 (hen how)                      very good
6. wo3                                             I
7. ta1                                     he or she (doesnt matter)
8. ni3                                                         you
9. wo3 men                                                us/we
10. ta1 men                                               them/they
11. ni3 men                                               you (plural)
12. Ja1 na2 da3                                        Canada

13. Ja1 na2 da3 ren2                                Canadian

14. Mei3 guo2 (may gwa)                         America

15. Mei3 guo2 ren2 (may gwa ren)           American 

16. hao3-bu-hao3 (how-boo-how)            okay?

17. bu2-xie4 (boo-shay)          No thanks needed/youre welcome

18. yao4 (y-ow)                                         want

19. you3 (y-oh)                                          need

20. shi4 (sh)                                  am/is/are/to be

21. wo3 bu-dong3                         I dont understand

Those are a few words that we have learned. Altogether we have learned over 100 words. The words above were from the introduction and the first lesson. 

Our sentence patterns started out simple. A subject (S) an equative verb (EV) and a noun (N). For example: wo3 shi4 lao3shi1 (I am a teacher). We learned more and more, and today our sentence structure looks like this: S, A, AV (auxiliary verb), V (verb), SP (specifiers), NU (number), M (measure word), N (noun). For example: Lao3shi1 bu2 yao3 gei3 wo3 nei2 yi ben3 shu1 (Teacher didnt give me that one book). Confused yet? The measure word is a word that comes after a number to describe the noun. We have learned about 5 different measure words. In the example, ben3 describes books. Textbook. Notebook. Workbook. kuai2 describes money. zhi1 describes pens, sticks, anything in a stick like shape. zhang1 is for anything flat - stamps, postcards, table. ge is a generic measure word, but cant be used if there is a specific measure word for the item. Im sure you are confused now. Welcome to the world of Chinese language.  

We have also learned to count. Yes, that is just as strange. Well, 1 - 99 is ok, the higher numbers are crazy. If you know the numbers 1-10 you can count to 99. 11 is just 10+1, 12 is 10+2, 13 = 10+3 etc...20 is 2+10, 21 = 2+10+1, 22 = 2+10+2 etc. Oh, and when you need 2 of something you dont say er2 you say liang3. And when saying a phone number, the 1 is no longer yi1 it is yao1.

Anyone still with me?? I dont blame you if youre not. Im hoping once we get out more in the community and start using our language it will become much clearer and easier for us. We did learn useful words to use in the market when buying fruit and veggies and we learned the names of some our favorite dishes so we can order in a restaurant. And we learned to ask "How much is the total" so at least we can pay correctly. 

Besides learning Mandarin, we are also learning Australian and British...some new words/phrases are:

1. heaps....  (lots)

2. that is as (hot, cold, spicy, crazy...fill in the blank) as..... (the sentence just ends at 'as')   

3. reckon....(think, suppose)

4. rubbish....(garbage)

I would like to share some pr@ise points with you all

1. every child in my home now has their own bed and their own room (twins are sharing a room, but they have bunks now!)

2. we signed a 1 year contract with the landlord for 2300RMB/month, thanks to Justin (he was asking 2500RMB/mth) 

3. we will have our passports, birth certificates, work permit and residence permits in our hands tomorrow

4. we seem to be all settled in now...pictures are up that we brought from home, room are sorted out, all of L & A's things are gone from here and in their new place

We have a couple of pr'yer requests:

1. we have to buy the furniture off of L & A...they have not given us a price yet for their items...things like the beds, couch, kitchen table...pls pr that the price will be in our budget

2. ICC's major fundraiser, Walk The Wall, occurs this weekend...please pr it will be a success (we dont actually walk the Great Wall, we will just all walk 5-10k by the river bank) 

3. we are still not at 100% of our support raised...please pr that Gd will raise up those who would like to partner with us (we are at about 85%...i just received an update but havent had a chance to do the math)

Only in China

* 7 adults, 2 (pre)teens and 2 prechoolers can go for a filling meal for only 186RMB...that is less then $30CAD

* when you leave at 6:30pm for such a meal, you run into tons of high school kids just finishing their day

* moms think its okay for them to place their pre-schooler at your table (while we are eating a meal), next to your children and expect them to talk to each other

Thanks again for reading!! 

Love the Ying's (our new Chinese family name)