January: yi(1) yue(4)

February: er(4) yue(4)

March: san(1) yue(4)

April: si(4) yue(4)

May: wu(3) yue(4)

June: liu(4) yue(4)

July: qi(1) yue(4)

August: ba(1) yue(4)

September: jiu(3) yue(4)

October: shi(2) yue(2)

November: yue(4) shi(2) yi(1)

December: yue(4) shi(2) er(4)

Month: yue(4)

Year: nian(1)

Zero: ling(2)

One: yi(1)

Two: er(4)

Three: san(1)

Four: si(4)

Five: wu(3)

Six: liu(4)

Seven: qi(1)

Eight: ba(1)

Nine: jiu(3)

Ten: shi(2)

Eleven: shi(2) yi(1)

Twelve: shi(2) er(4)

Thirteen: shi(2) san(1)

Fourteen: shi(2) si(4)

Fifteen: shi(2) wu(3)

Sixteen: shi(2) liu(4)

Seventeen: shí(2) qi(1)

Eighteen: shí(2) ba(1)

Nineteen: shí(2) jiu(3)

Twenty: er(4) shi(2)

Twenty one: er(4) shi(2) yi(1)

Thirty: san(1) shi(2)

Thirty one: san(1) shi2) yi(1)

Forty: si(4) shi(2)

Forty one: si(4) shi(3) yi(1)

Fifty: wu(3) shi(2)

Fifty one: wu(3) shi(2) yi(1)

Sixty: liu(4) shi(2)

Sixty one: liu(4) shi(2) yi(1)

Seventy: qi(1) shi(2)

Seventy one: qi(1) shi(2) yi(1)

Eighty: ba(1) shi(2)

Eighty one: ba(1) shi(2) yi(1)

Ninety: jiu(3) shi(2)

Ninety one: jiu(3) shi(2) yi(1)

One hundred: yi(4) bai(3)

One thousand: yi(4) qian(1)

Days of the Week

Sunday: xing(1) qi(1) tian(1)

Monday: xing(1) qi(1) yi(1)

Tuesday: xing(1) qi(1) er(4)

Wednesday: xing(1) qi(1) san(1)

Thursday: xing(1) qi(1) si(4)

Friday: xing(1) qi(1) wu(3)

Saturday: xing(1) qi(1) liu(4)

Day tian(1)

Week: xing(1) qi(1)

Weekend: zhou(1) mo(4)

Today: jin(1) tian(1)

Tomorrow: ming(2) tian(1)

Birthday: sheng(1) ri(4)

The Chinese Zodiac (sheng xiao in Chinese) is depicted by twelve animals, which are representative of a 12year calendar cycle. This cycle is common throughout East Asian but some of the animals may differ depending on which country is using it. Regardless of the country, each animal in the Chinese Zodiac are characterized by different character traits. The traits of the animals are listed below

The Rat is characterized by being forthright, tenacious, systematic, meticulous, charismatic, hardworking, industrious, charming, eloquent, sociable, shrewd, and awesome. Additionally, it can be manipulative, vindictive, mendacious, venal, selfish, obstinate, critical, over-ambitious, ruthless, intolerant, scheming.

The Ox is characterized by being dependable, calm, methodical, a born leader, patient, hardworking, ambitious, conventional, steady, modest, logical, resolute, and tenacious. Additionally, it can be stubborn, narrow-minded, materialistic, rigid, and demanding

The Tiger is characterized by being unpredictable, rebellious, colorful, powerful, passionate, daring, impulsive, vigorous, stimulating, sincere, affectionate, a humanitarian, and generous. Additionally, it can be restless, reckless, impatient, quick-tempered, obstinate, selfish, aggressive, and unpredictable.

The Rabbit is characterized by being gracious, a good friend, kind, sensitive, soft-spoken, amiable, elegant, reserved, cautious, artistic, thorough, tender, self-assured, astute, compassionate, and flexible. Additionally, it can be moody, detached, superficial, self-indulgent, and opportunistic.

The Dragon is characterized by being magnanimous, stately, vigorous, strong, self assured, proud, noble, direct, dignified, zealous, eccentric, intellectual, fiery, passionate, decisive, pioneering, ambitious, generous, and loyal. Additionally it can be tactless, arrogant, imperious, tyrannical, demanding, intolerant, dogmatic, violent, impetuous, and brash.

The Snake is characterized by being a deep thinker, wise, mystic, graceful, soft-spoken, sensual, creative, prudent, shrewd, ambitious, elegant, cautious, responsible, calm, strong, constant, and purposeful. Additionally, it can be a loner, a bad communicator, possessive, hedonistic, self-doubting, distrustful, mendacious, suffocating, and cold.

The Horse is characterized by being cheerful, popular, quick-witted, changeable, earthy, perceptive, talkative, agile – mentally and physically, magnetic, intelligent, astute, flexible, open-minded. Additionally, it can be fickle, arrogant, childish, anxious, rude, gullible, and stubborn.

The Ram is characterized by being righteous, sincere, sympathetic, mild-mannered, shy, artistic, creative, gentle, compassionate, understanding, mothering, determined, peaceful, generous, seeks security. Additionally, it can be moody, indecisive, over-passive, worrier, pessimistic, over-sensitive, a complainer, and weak-willed.

The Monkey is characterized by being an inventor, a motivator, an improviser, quick-witted, inquisitive, flexible, innovative, a problem solver, self-assured, sociable, polite, dignified, competitive, objective, factual, and intellectual. Additionally, it can be egotistical, vain, selfish, reckless, and snobbish,

The Rooster is characterized by being acute, neat, meticulous, organized, self-assured, decisive, conservative, critical, perfectionist, alert, zealous, practical, scientific, and responsible. Additionally, it can be over zealous, critical, puritanical, egotistical, abrasive, and opinionated,

The Dog is characterized by being honest, intelligent, straightforward, loyal, attractive, amicable, unpretentious, sociable, open-minded, idealistic, moralistic, practical, affectionate, and self justice and fair play. Additionally, it can be cynical, lazy, cold, judgmental, pessimistic, worrier, stubborn, and quarrelsome.

The Pig is characterized by being Honest, gallant, sturdy, sociable, peace-loving, patient, loyal, hard-working, trusting, sincere, calm, understanding, thoughtful, scrupulous, passionate, and intelligent. Additionally, it can be naive, over-reliant, self-indulgent, gullible, fatalistic, and materialistic.

So if you were born in the year of the pig, then you would have those characteristics that are associated with that year, right? Well, Somewhat. It is not that simple; just as there are animals are assign to a year they are also attributed to the month and even the hour in which you were born. While keeping this in mind we can realize that there are thousands upon thousands possible (8, 640) combinations that can exist, so one person is not just born in the year of the pig, but in the month of the dragon, and the hour of the rat.

History of Chinese Writing

The tools used to communicate in the Chinese language have drastically changed over time, thus affecting how the characters are written and look. The earliest form of Chinese writing occurred on pottery and on oracle bones. These characters where written with sharp angles. Eventually the Chinese began to use brushes to write characters, which allow them to be formed with much grace. These characters were written in books that consisted of bamboo sticks and eventually on paper in a column formation from right to left. Despite the fact that oldest bamboo books no longer exist we can track the development of the Chinese writing system through paintings, seals and many other types of objects with Chinese inscriptions.

Nowadays, Chinese characters have transformed in structure over time and are currently written with all types of modern writing instruments, such as pens and brushes. If you are interested in learning how to write Characters then I would recommend that you start of using things you have most accessible to you. If you feel you want to take writing characters to the next level, and begin creating calligraphy, then I would suggest you use brushes.

Radicals: Foundation of Characters

When Chinese characters were created they were used to portray their physical counterparts, such as human, water, fire, moon, and tree. In order to depict more complicated objects and ideas combination of radicals are put in a logical manner. If you look closely you will be able to depict the meaning of a single or even a combination of characters. The basic characters are called radicals and are used to construct even more complex characters. Below there are characters listed in chronological order from up to 4000 years old to present day.

Pull: This character is depicting a hand pulling an ear. The character pull has two different radicals in it.

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Learn and Understand Tones

The Chinese language is centered on the usage of tones. If you do not produce the tones that are associated with each word correctly, then you will not be able to communicate in the language effectively. The Mandarin dialect has 5 tones, which are neutral, first, second, third, and fourth tone. For people who are use to speaking and learning one of the romance languages, then it may be difficult to adjust to the major differences between Chinese and a language like English. The main difference between a language like Chinese and the romance languages is that Chinese is a tonal language and Chinese does not use an alphabet.

Practice your Pronunciation

When one begins to learn the sounds that compose the Chinese language they may become confused because certain sounds in the language actually sound similar, and to an untrained ear they may sound exactly alike. Beside similar sounding sounds, the language has sounds that are difficult for some non-native Chinese speakers simply because those sounds may not present in their native tongue. The key is to listen to an audio file with Chinese words and try to repeat what you hear exactly as it is said. If you continue to do this then your pronunciation of the characters will drastically improve.

Learn Pinyin

Taking the time out to learning pinyin is essential to having a well-round Chinese learning experience. Pinyin is simply the romanized form of the sounds that compose the Chinese language. Pinyin put a Chinese character into the alphabet by using the characters sounds. Pinyin is used in mandarin speaking homes to assist children connect spoken words that they know with characters they don’t. Pinyin is an effective tool to help people who are not native Chinese speakers learn the language.

Practice Speaking

Simply put, if you do not vocalize what you are learning then you will never completely be comfortable with the language. It will even become difficult for you to speak the language when you need to because you won’t be use to it, so do yourself a favor now and become comfortable speaking. The best way to practice the language is to speak with people that know Chinese. If you do not know any then politely ask people you do not know if you and them can speak in Chinese when you around each other. Even if you don’t know a lot of words in Chinese that is fine, the trick is just to speak and the person you are communicating with will fill in the blanks. Communicating in Chinese will allow to remember your new word and pick up the language faster. Another way to communicate while you are a beginner learning Chinese is to be crafty and try to express yourself despite the fact that you may not know the exact word for something.

For example: (You don’t know how to say table)

Instead of saying: I put the glass on top of the table.

You could say: I put the glass on top of the thing/ I put the glass on top of that.

In doing this you are setting up the other person to fill in the blanks for you allowing you to retain the word because you are actually speaking and know how to apply it.

Practice Writing

Writing in Chinese is not as difficult as one may think. There are a set of rules, stroke order, that one must follow, and once those rules are learned writing using characters becomes a lot easier. It just becomes a matter of memorizing characters in order to be able to express your thought in writing, which is not too difficult.

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The coordination of creating Chinese language programs has been sporadic, but in order to have language programs available for learners at all education levels, regardless of location, there has to be a national organized effort. There has to be an infrastructure that takes into account the students, teachers, curriculum, materials, assessment, and the training, funding, and support needed for individual language proficiency and societal language education capacity (asiasociety.org) on a national level. Without this infrastructure the United States can not expect Chinese language learners to have any incentive or take the opportunity to be become literate and proficient user of Chinese. In order to do this we have to make sure the Chinese learning process is as seamless as possible regardless of where the student began learning the language. I can not stress enough the importance of an infrastructure; according to the Foreign Service Institute of the State Department the Chinese language is categorized as a category three language as oppose to Spanish which is a category one language. This means that whatever level of proficiency you would achieve in Spanish with 575-600 hours of instruction it would take you 2,200 hours of instruction to reach that same level of proficiency in Chinese.

The process of creating a stable Chinese language learning experience across the United States is happening right now. Organizations like the Asia Society and the College Board are among the few who are trying to expedite this process, so the growing demand for a Chinese language curribculum can be met by a credible well thought out curriculum. The product of such a curriculum will be a individuals who will be able to assist the United States in meeting the demands of an increasingly globalizing world.

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Top Five Reasons to Learn Chinese

1. 1/5 of the world’s population speaks it.
The country of China has a population consisting of over 1.3 billion people, which means that nearly one-fifth of the world’s population speaks the same language. In addition, current studies show that there will be more websites, thus information, in Chinese then in English. Learning the Chinese language will give you the ability to access more information, communicate in a different language. All this will give you the ability to expand your knowledge of and perspective on different cultures, customs, etc.

2. Every one is do it!
Chinese is the fastest growing language studied in the United States. Chinese language courses have been witnessing higher number of students in the classrooms all across the US then ever before. Chinese language course have also been on the rise in high schools, middle schools, and some elementary school across the United States. Even on the colligate level, a lot more students are deciding to study Chinese and travel to China, on terms abroad, then ever before. Currently, the Chinese language is witnessing a growth in popularity, and the people who know how to speak the language will most likely have a lot more opportunities available to them then otherwise.

3. Stay competitive
Currently, China’s economy is booming. The growth that is taking place has made economist say that China will eventually be a competing power in the new world. Already, jobs are being outsourced to East Asia, and there is a lot more stock in the ability to speak a new language, especially china. Entrepreneurs and Corporations alike see the value in having employee that can communicate in the language, so that is why it is important put yourself in the position to learn it. To be one of the few non native speakers of the language will be extremely beneficial. Globalization is increasingly affecting the world, and with China having the largest human capital in the world the outsourcing of jobs to china will also increase.

4. Olympics in Beijing
The 2008 Olympic was in Beijing. That was a great opportunity for China to show the world their economic progress and development. For those who went to China during this time know that learning the language would have allowed or allowed them the ability to really partake in this historic event. Even if you were not able to go, you should still travel there because the interest in this country has gone through the roof. Additionally, the country is rapidly changing the China of 10 years go is not the China today, and the China in of five years from now will be extremely different from the China from now.

5. Chinese is not that hard!
Learning to speak Chinese is not hard at all. With modern development of audio and computer Chinese language programs there are more accessible ways to break down the nuances of the language. Chinese has grammar rules just like any other language and once you know the vocabulary and applying it you will see that the language is not that difficult. If you do learn the language will you have an invaluable ability on your resume and it will do wonders for your career. You just have to realize that just like anything learning the language takes time, but if you dedicate time and find the right resources you will get it in no time.

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The Chinese language is called hanyu or Zhongwen. Over 1 billion people in the world speak some form of Chinese. The form of Chinese that has become the official dialect of the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan is Mandarin, also referred to as the Putonghua, meaning the common language. Besides being prominent in Mainland China and Taiwan, mandarin is also one of the official languages in Singapore and the United Nations. Some other variants (dialects) of the language are Min Dong, Jinyu, Pu Xian, Huizhou, Min Zhong, Gan, Hakka, Xiang, Min Bei, Min Nan, and Wu.

These different dialects are spoken by millions of people. Mandarin is spoken by 850 million people, Wu is spoken by 90 million people, Cantonese is spoken by 80 million people, min is spoken by 50 million people, Xiang is spoken by 35 million people, Hakka by 35 million people, and Gan by 20 million people. No one expects you to learn all the variants of the Chinese language that I have listed here, but the best thing to do is study the variation that is spoken by more people. Based on the numbers that are listed above, that would be Mandarin. Mandarin Chinese is not a difficult language to learn. Yes, you heard me correct. It is not a difficult language to learn. Spoken Chinese is based on tones, and if you don’t say a word correctly your sentence’s meaning or it will not make sense.

Pronunciation is extremely important. This became quite clear when I went on a term abroad my Junior year at Union College in Schenectady New York. When the other students and I explored Shanghai, where we lived, we would take a train, ?bus, or cab. When we got lost or were trying to get back to our dorm rooms in Fudan University we would have to ?repeatedly say the address, wu dong lu fudan da xue, in different tonal patterns until he understood. Eventually we learned how to say our address and speak Mandarin properly. That story was just to demonstrate the importance of learning how to pronounce the characters, but at the same time show the language can be learned if you are willing to try. Speak it with someone who knows Chinese. Ask anyone in your neighborhood, school, church, etc. if they are willing to speak to you in the Chinese language when they see you.

So when you learn to speak Chinese keep in mind that in Mandarin there are four tones. These tones affect the sound of a character, thus affecting its meaning. The four tones are high level (1^st tone), high rising (2^nd tone), low falling rising (3^rd tone) and high falling (4^th tone).To really get these down, I recommend immersing yourself in the language and getting the resources that will assist you to speak Chinese properly.

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