Lesson 1 of Integrated Chinese starts with… (surprise, surprise!) …greetings. To get a better feel for how some of the words are used, click on the ChinesePod Dictionary links below. With each dictionary entry you’ll find sample sentences with rollover annotation (try mousing over the words in the sentences!) as well as audio recordings. The simpler sentences will be at the top.
- 姓 (xìng): this word can be tricky because it not only means “surname,” but it can also be a verb meaning “to be surnamed.”
- 叫 (jiào): You can use this verb to mean “to call” as well as “to be called.” The sample sentences for this entry give you a good idea of how it is used to tell people’s names.
- 是 (shì): Check out all these awesome simple sentences. Two word sentences aren’t too tough to digest.
- 什么 (shénme): The rock star of Chinese interrogative pronouns. It’s easy to use. Check out the sample sentences here.
- 呢 (ne): This particle is not difficult, but it takes a little getting used to. These simple sample sentences will help give you the exposure you need to get a feel for its meaning.
- 吗 (ma): Mandarin’s “question particle” is often best understood through repeated exposure. These simple sentences will help.
If you’re logged in (top right of the dictionary pages), you can also click on words to add them to your ChinesePod vocabulary list.
Finally, we have a handy PDF vocabulary list for you:
IC Level 1, Lesson 1 VocabularyAny questions about Lesson 1 vocabulary? Let us have them!
-John Pasden
The dictionary links are quite cool - especially with the way the engine automatically seems to sort by level of difficulty. I think my favorite sentence is:
好，老子看你今天是来找打的。今天不教训你我就不姓王。
All right pal, I see today you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’. I’ll teach you a lesson today, or my name isn’t Wang.
I *wish* I knew how to say this in my first month of Chinese.
well with Chinese pod you can! Just listen to it a whole bunch or take it to your teacher and have them slow it down for you!
good luck
高建
ne seems to still puzzle me beyond the basic ni ne reflecting the answer back. I get the concept but it appears to be used in many different ways in the example.
Greg,
I always thought of 呢 (ne) as “and as for…” that is at the end of the sentence instead of the beginning.
你呢 ni ne — and as for you?
你的公司呢 ni de gong si ne — and as for your company?
Greg,
I agree with John B that 呢 (ne) usually can be translated with something like, “and what about….” On the current dictionary page, though, there are several examples where it doesn’t work:
You’ll notice that for all three of these, the verb is followed by the particle 着 (zhe). This is a recurring pattern, and in these cases you don’t really need to worry about what exactly 呢 (ne) means here. It’s not something to focus on in your very first Chinese lesson, at any rate.
Then there are the examples where 呢 is not preceded by a noun, like this one:
In that case, the original concept still applies, but you should just shorten the translation in your head to “And…,” as in, “And what are they?” or “And which ones are there?” (depending on the context).