jpadmin, Author at Jinbupal

Tech Pit Stop: Setup Chinese Input on Your Phone

March 10, 2019

It will be really helpful from day one if you’re able to input Chinese on your phone. This can be quite useful for dictionary lookups, Google Translate, texting on WeChat, and many other things. (We’ll discuss some of these apps later on).

-On iPhone: Go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Add New Keyboard… > Chinese (Simplified) or Chinese (Traditional).

Now that your keyboard is setup, you can easily access it an any application by pressing the globe key on your keyboard to cycle through your installed keyboards. Just like the computer input method we discussed in the last post, iPhone will offer different options of characters as shown in the animation below.

-On Android: Unfortunately, I don’t have an Android phone to play around with and create as much detail as I did above for Apple products. But hopefully it’s just as helpful following the instructions provided directly by Google here.

Next up: Tech Pit Stop: Must have Apps for Your Phone

How to get started learning Chinese Series

Tech Pit Stop: Setup Chinese Input on Your Computer

March 9, 2019

You may have wondered how Chinese characters are typed on your computer or phone. Chinese text actually is typed on a normal English keyboard, all you need is built in software to translate the way keyboard strokes are interpreted by your computer. This is called an input method. In Chinese, it’s called 中文输入法（zhōngwén shūrùfǎ or Chinese Input Method.）There are several different types of input methods to choose from, but we’ll just cover the method which is far and away the most popular: pinyin input method.

The way it works is you enter the pinyin of the character you want to type and the software presents you with character options to choose from. There’s no need to type in the tone. Fortunately, the software is predictive and it can often narrow down the selections very well when you type multiple words of pinyin at a time. If the first highlighted option is what you want to select, all you have to do is hit the spacebar to confirm the selection. If you want something else, you can use the number keys to select the corresponding option. Check out the example below:

The software does a great job of predicting what you intend to say, even to the extent you can take pretty significant shortcuts. For example, check out this example of typing wǒ bù zhīdao as wbzd. (This means “I don’t know.”)

Although the software usually can predict what you want to say, sometimes you will need to guide it a bit by using the arrow keys to navigate possible options before pressing a number key. This is commonly necessary when using characters or words out of context or a combination of pinyin that could translate to many unique words.

One thing to note is that typing in pinyin is straightforward except for the finals –ǚ and -ǚe. You should know that these are typed with a “v”, such as “nv” for 女 (nǚ meaning women) or “lv” for 绿 (lǚ meaning “green”).

Setup – Mac:

Setup for using the Chinese input method on Mac is pretty straightforward. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources. Click the + symbol and your preference of “Chinese, Simplified” or “Chinese, Traditional” and then select Pinyin. Now you’re set to go. Also, make sure you go to the Shortcuts tab > Input Sources and check both boxes for “Select the previous input source” and “Select next source in Input menu.” These keyboard shortcuts can be used to easily change between your input sources.

Your current input source will be shown at the top right of the screen and can be switched by selecting the box or using the keyboard short Cntrl + Option + Spacebar.

Setup – Windows:

Depending on which version of Windows you have installed, you’re download process might be slightly different. Microsoft allows you to add input methods through downloading what it calls Language Packs. Microsoft has a guide for this installation found here.

Alternative option to system defaults:

Although your computer comes preinstalled to handle Chinese input methods, some people prefer to use alternative software for this task. One of those options is…

Sogou: (http://www.sogou.com/). Sogou is the most popular third-party Chinese input method software in the world. Personally, I have never used it because I’m pretty happy with the pre-programmed Mac input software. But Sogou software is very popular and definitely worth checking out if you are interested.

Next up: Tech Pit Stop: Setup Chinese Input on Your Phone

How to get started learning Chinese Series

The 4 Tones 

March 8, 2019

Alright so now we’ve arrived at the four tones. Mandarin Chinese has 4 tones plus a neutral or unstressed tone which is often referred to as the 5^th tone. When first starting out, I found it very difficult to notice the difference in the tones. I hope this post can clear things up.

When you are reading through this, I would recommend trying to think about how each of the tones sounds when said very slowly. I say this because when said slowly, it’s very easy to see how the pitch changes for each of the four tones. However, when you hear them said at normal speed, I find the four tones are much more difficult to distinguish as a beginner. Over time, you won’t need to think about how the pitch of a speaker’s voice changes, because you’re understanding of tone will eventually become ingrained such that you just know by the way a word sounds what tone it is. For this reason, I provide some tips in this article that will help indicate tone without thinking about the pitch specifically.

Okay, so how do you know which tone is used for a specific character? Tones are denoted for individual characters by accent marks over a vowel in the pinyin final. The marks attributed to each tone are shown below. Note that the neutral tone does not have any tone mark attributed to it and it is written just as the pinyin without a mark.

1 ¯ 2 ´ 3 ˇ 4 `

The shapes of these tones mark actually accurately reflect the shape of the curve for each tone’s pitch. That is, the first tone is high and flat pitch, the second is rising pitch, the third is a low falling-rising pitch, and the fourth is falling pitch. We’ll discuss this further below.

These tones can be seen on a tone chart like the one below.

Source: http://web.mit.edu/jinzhang/www/pinyin/tones/index.html

As we discussed earlier, words are typically formed by pairs of characters called bigrams. For this reason, tones also come in these same pairs. It’s often recommended to practice the tones in pairs because this will help you get an idea of the flow tones provide to the language.

Now let’s break down the characteristics of each tone individually.

1^st tone: This tone is a high-flat pitch. Think of this tone as being at the upper level of your voice’s pitch range. It is usually pretty noticeable because you will typically let the sound ring out almost as if you were singing the syllable at a high pitch. Because of this ringing out, the 1^st tone tends to sound longer than the 2^ndand 4^th tones. The 3^rd tone also is often a bit longer in this way, but it is recognizably lower and usually bounces in comparison to the 1^st tone.
2^nd tone: This tone is a flat-rising tone that starts around the middle of your pitch range.The best explanation I have heard is to think of the way your inflection changes in English when you are asking a question. Some good single syllable examples would be questions like “huh?”, “right?”, or “ok?” Because of this, the 2^nd tone tends to sound to me a bit softer than the other three tones. By “soft”, I mean as in a “soft” vowel, rather than the opposite of loud.
3^rd tone: This tone is technically falling-rising tone. (I say technically because it is most often impacted by tone change rules which I will discuss in a second.) Your voice will start out already towards the lower end of your pitch range and fall to your lowest pitch before rising again. When first learning, I personally had trouble noticing the differences between this tone and the 2^nd tone. If you have this problem, it is usually quite noticeable that the 3^rd tone is much more drawn out and longer lasting than the second tone. You will also notice that the 3rd tone hits a very low point with the sound almost being “croaky” because the pitch is so low. When spoken, you can imagine your voice making a checkmark shape or bouncing with the part after the bounce being drawn out a bit more. You can sometimes even notice that when people speak this tone, their speech will cut out slightly at the lowest pitch before rising. This is not something they are consciously doing; it just happens as the result of hitting the lowest pitch your voice can handle. Regarding Tone Change rules: It’s worth noting that the 3rd tone more often than not either changes completely to a second tone or is pronounced as a half-third tone (半上声). The half-third tone is noticeably formed as a 2-1-1 on the chart rather than 2-1-4. For this reason, in recent years more resources are saying the third tone is a low tone rather than a falling-rising tone, because in most cases it is, despite the fact that the official pronunciation of the 3rd tone is in fact falling-rising.

4^th tone: This tone is a falling tone that starts toward your high range and falls quickly to a low pitch. The best explanation I have heard of this tone is that it sounds like the stress used in English for an emphatic statement, such as “No!” Try saying this slowed down to notice the change in pitch from high to low.
Unstressed tone (sometimes called the 5^th tone): This tone is a neutral, unstressed tone which is said very light and short. This is applied to common particles like, 的 (de) or 吗 (ma), which will be discussed later. Also, this tone appears in the second character of some bigram words.

I think that tones can seem very difficult to grasp when you first start learning and there are a few reasons for this. If you have not listened to a lot of Chinese speech, it can be very difficult to recognize the tones. At the same time, if you are just getting starting and don’t know many words or characters, it’s easy to feel like you’re not gaining much value out of listening to the speech without understanding any of the content.

But there is one subject that is skipped in every single explanation of tones I have ever seen: how tones sound when they are exaggerated. If you listen to Chinese podcasts or narrative documentaries, for example, speakers will often enunciate clearly but also exaggerate tones to put more emphasis on certain words. In English, we may emphasize words by changing our stress on the word, but in Chinese, words can be emphasized by simply exaggerating one of the tones that is already a part of the word. It’s important to be aware how this sounds because (at least for me) it can seem very unusual compared to the 4 tone examples provided in most basic explanations. Once you become accustomed to hearing these, you might find that listening to content with this type of speech is even easier for practicing your listening skills specifically because of the exaggeration. As I said before, once you recognize the characteristics of different tones you can pick them out easily by how they sound without always having to actually think about how the pitch changed.

So then, let’s talk about each of the 4 tones specifically when exaggerated:

1^st tone: You can really hear the word sort of ring out and the end of the syllable is particularly drawn out.
2^nd tone: I find that this tone stands out because you really hear the rising of the tone and it is extended with the end almost ringing out like the first tone.
3^rd tone: An exaggerated 3^rd tone is pretty easy to identify because the falling and rising is often very pronounced. Oftentimes, a 3^rd tone can be identified most easily as a really low and elongated tone.
4^th tone: When the forth tone is exaggerated, the speaker usually starts with much higher tone than normal (more like a first tone) and drops in tone quickly to a low tone.

I hope that this post helps you to understand not only how the 4 tones work, but also helps you start hearing and identifying the tones more easily. It is not uncommon to have trouble hearing them right away, so it’s important to keep at it and trust that it will eventually become natural to you.

Alright, time for a bit of break from all the information and let’s deal with a few ways you can make technology work for you along the way.

Next up: Tech Pit Stop: Setup Chinese Input on Your Computer

How to get started learning Chinese Series

Tones Aren’t So Scary

March 7, 2019

Alright, so we’ve covered the character pinyin and pronunciations. Now there’s one final piece to introduce: tones. Tones are often discussed as one of the more difficult aspects of the Chinese language. I hope this post will help demystify the tones for you so you understand them much better. With a full understanding, you can jump straight into learning the tones for specific characters.

** I want to make a quick disclaimer to make sure there is no confusion. Chinese tones are very important. Using the incorrect tones or no tones at all in your speech can make it very difficult for you to be understood, even in context, let alone when trying to use characters or words out of context. If we are saying a word and using the incorrect tone, let’s be clear that we are undisputedly saying the word wrong altogether. The tone is as much a part of the character as it’s pinyin, so you should never expect that you can completely ignore tones. **

Mandarin Chinese utilizes 4 tones (plus one neutral tone) to attach meaning to characters. However, a common misconception of tones is that it has something to do with singing or musical tones. That is, people often think they would have to be able to recognize specific musical tones to learn this concept. This is absolutely not true. Tones are actually a lot more like the stress that we put on words in the English language. You’ve probably never noticed it, but English also uses similar “tones” to convey meaning. Take the following example, how does the meaning of the following sentence change by placing the stress on different words?

I didn’t say that. – Neutral
I didn’t say that. – Suggesting someone else said it
I didn’t say that. – Defensive
I didn’t say that. – Suggesting I conveyed it somehow, but not by saying it
I didn’t say that. – Suggesting I did say something, just not that.

These sentences all contain the same exact words, but the stress completely changed the implied meaning. This is a concept that can be very difficult to grasp for non-native English speakers. Let’s imagine a situation in which you said sentence number 2, but you meant sentence number 5. It would be quite confusing to the listener, who might need another sentence or more of context before they realized your mistake and they would probably still need you to clarify. This is similar to what can happen when you speak in Chinese while using the wrong tones, only the resulting difference in meaning can be much greater.

Similarly, it’s not uncommon as an English speaker to change the inflection of your voice to give additional meaning to the sentence. For example, let’s look at the sentence, “You live in New York.” But instead of saying it with a neutral stress, you raise the pitch of your voice on the last word. The sentence now becomes a question: “You live in New York?” In fact, we will discuss later that the 2^nd tone in Chinese is actually very similar to the inflection of that last word.

Now, Chinese has many many homonyms; this is one of the reasons people often find it so difficult. For example, even of the highest frequency 600 words, about 3% have the exact same pinyin of “shi” in one of the 4 tones. I was able to understand tones a bit better after thinking also about the number of homonyms in the English language. There are some examples of English homophones where context is necessary to clarify the meaning. For example: read/red, where/wear, two/to/too, one/won, etc.

I like to think of Chinese similar as to this, just with a whole lot more homophones. The difference is, in Chinese a lot of these homophones have the same pinyin, but the tones are used to clarify meaning instead of context. Take the following words as an example:

北京 (běijīng) – Beijing
背景 (bèijǐng) – background

上海 (shànghǎi) – Shanghai
伤害 (shānghài) – to harm

使用 (shǐyòng) – to use
实用 (shíyòng) – practical
适用 (shìyòng) – applicable

买 (mǎi) – to buy
卖 (mài) – to sell

In the following examples, I like to think of tones as actually making your life easier, not harder, because the tone is the only thing that makes the different homophone meanings stand out.

Just to clarify though, the examples I’ve shown here were chosen specifically to highlight this phenomenon. Most words contain two characters and many two character combinations (and their pinyin combination) are actually unique. So I think that people often really over-exaggerate when they say things like, “I hear Chinese is difficult because if you say the word wrong, it has a completely different meaning.” While that’s true for some words, the majority of words you will use in context would not be immediately mistaken for a specific alternative word with a different meaning if you used the wrong tone. Instead, it would just sound completely wrong and potentially be confusing to the person trying to work out what you are saying. It would be like trying to understand someone speaking English who’s putting emphasis on all the wrong syllables.

My recommendation (and also a recommendation I was given) for learning tones would be to try to learn the tones from beginning, but only to the extent that it is not slowing you down in learning the most frequently used 600-1000 characters. If certain tones just won’t stick in your mind, I suggest moving on to learning more characters so that you never slow down your progress building up the base of characters. Once you know this set of characters, starting to read content of any difficulty level will be surprisingly approachable. I found this is the time when it became crucially important for me to go back and ensure that every single time I read a character, I forced myself to say the tone aloud or in my head until they were cemented in my memory. I find that tones both feel more natural and are way easier to remember when you can associate them with several words containing a common character rather than studying tone for the character by itself.

Ultimately, the goal of this guide is to equip you with everything you need to start reading and watching content that you are actually interested in as soon as possible. If you can find content that you are reading because you are interested in it, and not just because it’s in Chinese, you will find that your growth is much faster and more enjoyable. Once you have the ability to start reading and really enjoying using the language, this is when you should make sure you are steadfast in focusing on the long term familiarization with tones. Now we’ve discussed how tones work and their relationship with characters. But we still need to go into detail about each of the 4 tones and talk about how to recognize them. We’ll cover this in the next post.

Next up: The 4 Tones

How to get started learning Chinese Series

Get an Overview of Pinyin Pronunciation 

March 5, 2019

In the last post, we discussed what pinyin is and how it’s used. Now it’s time for the more difficult subject of understanding how different pinyin are pronounced. Pinyin syllables are composed of separate parts called initials and finals. Initials consist of one or two consonants at the beginning of a pinyin syllable. Finals consist of a vowel and/or some ending consonants. A full pinyin either combines an initial and final or the pinyin is sometimes just a final by itself. In total, there are 23 initials and 34 finals that can be combined together to form all the different pinyin.

Before we dive into the details, I will say that for me personally, I believe it’s best to practice the pinyin pronunciations as you start learning characters. Mastering the initials and finals is easier when looking at complete pinyin that utilize them. There a lot of distinct pinyin, so it can be easier to practice pronunciation by working on the pinyin associated with the characters you are currently studying as they come up in your learning. I would also recommend studying several characters all at once which use the same pinyin in order to help you get more practice as you start out.

Fortunately, the same initials and finals come up again and again, so you will quickly feel very comfortable with the all the pinyin sounds after getting some frequently used characters under your belt. But also this means it’s important to ensure your learning is built on a foundation of correct pronunciation. With this guide, I hope to give you a good base understanding to build from as you learn as well as a few resources that will help you along the way. This way you will always have resources for correct pronunciation at the ready, removing any potential for guesswork when you’re unsure.

Take a look at all of the initials and finals listed out in the table below.

Initials
b- p- m- f-
d- t- n- l-
g- k- h-
j- q- x-
z- c- s-
zh- ch sh- r-
w- y-

Finals
-a -ai -ao -an -ang
-e -en -eng -er -ei
-i -ia -ie -iao -iu -ian -iang -in -ing -iong
-o -ou -ong
-u -ua -uo -uai -ui -uan -uang -un -ue
-ǚ -ǚe

For me it was really helpful for me to hear similar-sounding pinyin one after another. I found that until I trained my ear to hear the differences, several distinct sounds were very difficult to discern.

There are many great resources online with audio clips for each pinyin so that you can practice your pronunciation as you go. I would highly recommend this article as a very helpful reference for avoiding common confusing pinyin pronunciations.

Also, I found this pinyin chart with audio very helpful to play back pinyin and tone combinations as I learned new words. I’d suggest you bookmark it in your browser for quick access in your early stages of learning characters. You could also take a look here and here for further information on initials and finals.

I would recommend the pinyin chart over listening to computer generated voices like Google Translate for hearing pronunciation. I find these computerized voices don’t seem as accurate. For example, I find that on Google Translate the pinyin shi, chi, and zhi all seem to sound more like shee, chee, zhee rather than shrr, chrr, and zhrr. You can hear the difference in the audio clip below which compares a speaker with a Northern accent and Google Translate saying “这是事实”（zhì shì shì shí) meaning “This is a fact.”

Alright. Now that we have covered the official pronunciations, let’s give a brief introduction to a topic that can easily trip you up if you are unaware of it: Northern vs Southern Chinese accents.