Survival Chinese

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Survival Chinese
Chilin Shih East Asian Languages and
Cultures University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
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Chinese Geography Chinese Language Chinese
Banquet Etiquette
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Chinese Geography
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Chinese Geography
China has 1.3 billion people. 5000 years of
history 9.6 million square km of area
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Chinese Geography
Modern Chinese population concentrates in the
east. The Yellow River valley was the cradle of
Chinese civilization. The Yangtze River is the
longest river in Asia. The river basin is home to
one-third of Chinese population.
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Chinese Geography
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Chinese Population Density
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Chinese Geography
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Forbidden City, Beijing
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Great Wall, Beijing
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Xian
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Guilin
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Shanghai
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Chinese Language
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Chinese Language and Dialects
Mandarin is the official standard language of
China. Though China is well-known for language
diversity. There are many dialects such as
Cantonese and Shanghainese.
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Chinese Dialect Map
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Chinese Writing System
The Chinese writing system consists of more than
40,000 characters A typical college students
know about 3000-5000 characters
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Chinese Writing System
Some characters retain the ancient pictographic
design. Some are created with whimsical
combination.
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sun
car
moon
horse
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ri4
yue4
ming2
sun
moon
bright
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mu4
lin2
sen1
tree
woods
forest
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Chinese Writing System
Most of the Chinese characters are actually
sound-based, with a component indicating the
sound and another the meaning category.
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ma
question marker
ma4
ma1
ma3
mother
scold
horse
ma3
ma3
weight
ant
agate
ma3
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Chinese Writing System
In a traditional Chinese book, the characters are
written vertically and are read from right to
left.
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(No Transcript)
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Chinese Writing System
In modern books Chinese characters can be aligned
horizontally and are read from left to right.
This layout is commonly used for scientific
articles where English words are often included.
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(No Transcript)
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Chinese Tones
Chinese is a tone language. Different tones, or
pitch contours, change the meaning of the word.
Ma1 mother Ma2 hemp Ma3 horse Ma4 to scold
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Chinese Tones
Ma1-ma0 ma4 ma3. Mother scolds the horse.
Ma3 ma4 ma1-ma0. The horse scolds mother.
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Pinyin A Romanization System
Pinyin is a Romanization systema spelling aid
using Latin alphabet to annotate the
pronunciation of Chinese characters
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Pinyin Vowels
a, e, i, o, u, ü Pinyin uses these letters for 16
vowel sounds. The pronunciation changes with
context, though generally, say them as if you are
singing Italian songs.
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Pinyin examples
bi, ba, bu di, da, du ga, gu bei, bai ban,
bang puo, pong
pi, pa, pu ti, ta, tu ka, ku sa, su pin, ping ma,
na, la
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Pinyin examples
q ch x sh (say them with a smile!)
j gee zh jr with the tongue curled
qing wen May I ask,
please xie xie Thank you
Beijing Beijing Zhong guo China
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Banquet Etiquette
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Banquets serve important social functions in
China. Friendship is strengthened and political
and business decisions were typically made during
banquets.
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Place Setting
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Seating Arrangement
The seat facing the door is the honored seat for
the guest of honor. The host sits opposite to the
guest of honor.
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Guest
Host
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Dishes are served together in a casual gathering.
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Casual Banquet
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In a formal banquet, dishes are served
sequentially. There may be ten to twelve courses,
starting with appetizers and ending with a soup.
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The Appetizer
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The host will make a toast and welcome
everyone. Gan bei! This means bottom up.
Then the host will invite everyone to start.
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The honored guest is served first. This custom is
enthusiastically followed for the first few
courses.
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The honored guest usually makes a toast to the
host when the second dish is served. After that,
every one can initiate a toast to individual or
to the whole group. There may be many rounds of
toast during the course of the meal.
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When touching glasses, raise your glass to a
height that reflects the social ranking. When
toasting to your boss or senior, keep the rim of
your glass a bit lower.
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The host is responsible for ordering. It is an
art to find the perfect combination and sequence
to bring out the optimal culinary experience.
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There may be chicken, duck, beef, pork and
seafood, alternating with vegetable dishes.
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Only half way through. Enjoy each dish slowly.
The host will be happy if you sample every thing.
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Looking for a conversation topic? Ask about the
dishes. Many dishes have interesting stories
behind them.
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Is the fish head pointing at you? Then it is your
turn to drink.
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The word fish sounds the same as having more
resources. During New Year, we always leave some
fish in the plate to signify a resourceful and
abundant coming year.
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The Soup
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The soup is served at the end of the
meal. Afterwards, there may be fruit and/or a
simple dessert.
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• We will return for four modules
• of survival Chinese
• Greetings Meng Liu
• Shopping Huang-Lan Su
• Place names Lingling Yao
• Daily necessities Di Wendy Wu
• We have a webpage for you with
• vocabulary , sound recordings and
• handout. There are also links to
• nursery rhymes, poems and songs.
• http//faculty.las.illinois.edu/cls/SurvivalChines
  e