Video tutorial teaching how to say Are You Busy? in Mandarin Chinese

To ask “Are you busy?” in Mandarin say nǐ máng ma? (你忙吗?). Máng uses the second rising tone. Say this sentence over and over as it’s great practice for this tricky tone. Say it as if somebody were asking you a question and you respond saying, “yeah?” with your voice going up.

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How to say what is your name in Mandarin Chinese (Formal)

In Chinese the way of asking strangers and people of authority “What is your name?” is very different from Western languages. The question “What is your last name?” literally translates to “Your honourable name”. Say “Nín guì xìng?” (您贵姓). Rather than saying the informal nǐ (你) for “you” stick an “n” on the end and use the second rising tone and say “Nín”. Interestingly, the character for nín is written the same as nǐ but also has a heart radical. Guì (贵) literally means honourable or esteemed and xìng (姓) means last or surname. The whole phrase when meeting somebody for the first time would be “Qǐngwèn,Nín guì xìng?” (请问您贵姓?) or, “Excuse me, what is your honorable surname?”

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Personal pronouns in Mandarin Chinese

The personal pronouns in Mandarin Chinese are surprising simple, much easier than in Western languages such as English, French or Spanish. In Chinese there is no difference between I and me, she and her, we and us, or they and them.

We’ve already learned I (wǒ, 我) and you (nǐ, 你). To say he or she say tā with the first flat tone. While the sound of the word is the same for both he and she (this may be the reason why Chinese people often stumble on he and she when speaking English), the characters are different. The character for she is 她, and has a woman radical (女) on the left, while the character for he (他) has a person radical (人) on the left.

To say “we or us” simply stick the word “men” on the end of wǒ (我) and say men (我们). “Men” uses the neutral tone so there is no inflection in the voice. The character men (们) literally means many people. To say “you plural” (vous in French, ustedes in Spanish or ya’ll down south) say nǐmen (你们). For “they or them” say tāmen (他们).

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How to make a sentence negative in Mandarin Chinese

In Mandarin Chinese to say “no, not, don’t” there is simply one word or character: bù (不). In this situation bù uses the fourth tone but sometimes uses the second rising tone. To make a negative sentence the word order is Subject + + Verb + Object.  “I don’t eat food” you would literally say “I not eat food”, or chīfàn (我不吃饭).

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How to say beautiful in Mandarin Chinese

In this video I teach how to say beautiful in Mandarin Chinese. I was standing in front of a beautiful reflection in Wulai Village near Taipei and my bus was about to leave without me! To say beautiful in Mandarin say piàoliàng (). Use the fourth falling tone with each character. This can refer to a person or a place.

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Mandarin Chinese basic sentence structure - I eat food

Today I took a trip to Wulai Village which the home of the Atayal aboriginal tribe. The village is in the mountains and is famous for its hot springs and mountain hikes. You can get there by taking the MRT transit system to Xindian station then transferring to a bus. The entire trip is only about 40 minutes from the city center!

While many people believe that Mandarin Chinese is the hardest language in the world the basic sentence structure and grammar is actually EASY and follows a similar pattern to English: Subject, Verb, Object. There are some tricky sentence structures that come up but generally grammar is one of the easiest parts of learning the Chinese language.

Our example of a Subject, Verb, Object sentence is: I eat food, chīfàn (). “Wǒ” is the subject, I, “chī” is the verb, eat, and “fàn” is the object, food. The character fàn (饭) literally means cooked rice or meal but actually refers to food in general!

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How to say good-bye in Mandarin Chinese

In this video I teach how to say good-bye in Chinese. First say zài (). As I mentioned in my lesson on pinyin before the z here is a slight d sound. Say zài with the fourth falling tone. Then say jiàn (), also with fourth falling tone. Put the characters together and say zài jiàn. You will surely be understood!

Actually in my video below I forgot to mention that Chinese also often just say, “bye-bye!”. So when you’re not in a formal situation it is OK to say bye-bye!

I’m interested in hearing your feedback on my YouTube channel and this blog site. Please let me know how I can improve my teaching style. Also, I’m totally new to making videos and website design so I’d love any feedback/advice I can get on these areas! Thanks and 谢谢!  -David :)

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How to say I’m fine thank you in Mandarin Chinese

To say I’m fine thank you in Mandarin Chinese say hěn hǎo xièxiè (谢谢).

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How to say Taipei 101 in Mandarin Chinese

After yesterday’s slight mishap with lighting I am really excited to finally share my trip to the top of Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world. The building took five years to construct and was completed in 2004. According to the architects the building is meant to resemble a bamboo stalk. Taipei 101 has 101 floors and stands 509 metres (1,671 ft) tall. It will lose its ranking as tallest building in the world when the Burj Dubai is completed in 2009.

To say Taipei 101 we first need to learn how to pronounce Taipei with the right tones. To say Taipei say tái () with the second rising tone then běi () with the third dipping tone. For the one in 101 say yī with the first flat tone. For zero say líng with the second rising tone. Now, put it all together and say: táiběi língyī.

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How to say “How are you?” in Mandarin Chinese

Today was a rough day! I went out and shot a really fun video at a famous Taipei landmark and when I got home I realized that the lighting was too dark! If anybody has good advice on what kinds of cameras to buy and how to shoot good YouTube videos in poorly lit places please let me know. Thanks!

To say, “How are you?” in Mandarin take the characters for hello, nǐhǎo () and attach them to the character ma (). Ni and hao are pronounced with the third tone and ma is pronounced with a fifth  neutral tone. Ma is the question mark particle in Chinese and makes a question when found at the end of a phrase or sentence. Notice that ma doesn’t have any tone mark? There is no inflection in the voice when saying ma. So, put it all together and say nǐhǎoma (你好)? How are you?

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