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A New Course in Mandarin

An Introduction

(tones, initials, finals)

• Chinese/Pinyin Pronunciation
• Chinese/Pronunciation of Initials
• Chinese/Pronunciation of Finals
• Chinese/Using Tones

First Words in Mandarin

These first words you'll learn are called pictographic characters. They are characters that look similar to what they represent (although over the years they may have deformed slightly). Numbers, although not pictographic, will also be introduced.

Numbers

1. 一 yī
2. 二 èr
3. 三 sān
4. 四 sì
5. 五 wǔ
6. 六 liù
7. 七 qī
8. 八 bā
9. 九 jiǔ
10. 十 shí

100. 百 bǎi

If you want to go over 10, just do (for example, 15, 21, 99): 十五 shíwǔ (ten-five), 二十一 èrshíyī (two-ten-one), & 九十九 jiǔshíjiǔ (nine-ten-nine)

First Words

• 人 rén person
• 土 tǔ earth, land
• 大 dà big
• 木 mù wood**
• 目 mù eye**
• 王 wáng king
• 口 kǒu mouth
• 小 xiǎo small
• 手 shǒu hand
• 月 yuè moon***
• 日 rì sun, day***
• 田 tián farmland

.* *You may have noticed that and are pronounced the same, but are different characters. This happens frequently in Chinese, since there are only a limited amount of combinations that can be used with tones, initials, and finals.

.* * *These may be used in dates (三月二日 sānyuè èrrì [third moon, second sun] March 2nd)