Basics · Chapter 1How Chinese works
Before learning words, let’s see what the language is made of: syllables, tones and characters. Ten minutes now will save you months later.
One syllable — one character
A Chinese word is built from syllables, and every syllable is written with one character. “Teacher” is two syllables, lǎo and shī, and two characters: 老师. There is no alphabet: a character does not spell its sound.
So every word has three sides: how it is written (characters), how it sounds (pinyin, the Latin-letter spelling) and what it means.
Tones change the meaning
Every syllable has a tone, a pitch pattern: level, rising, dipping or falling. The same syllable with different tones is a different word: “mum”, “horse”. That is why tones are learned together with each word from day one — more in chapter 3.
The grammar is friendlier than it looks
- Words never change form. No cases, genders or conjugations: 我 is “I” and “me”.
- Word order does the work: who + when + where + does what + to what. “I am reading at home today” — 我今天在家看书.
- Time is shown by words, not endings: “yesterday”, “tomorrow”, the particle 了.
- A question is a statement + the particle 吗 at the end.
Simplified characters and Putonghua
We learn Putonghua (Mandarin), the standard language of China, and simplified characters, used in mainland China and in the HSK exam. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan and Hong Kong; once you know the simplified ones, the traditional forms are easy to recognise later.
What is HSK
HSK is the international Chinese proficiency test. The new HSK 3.0 has nine levels. HSK 1 requires 300 characters and 500 words — exactly what the 15 lessons after “Basics” cover. Every character of the level, with stroke order and worksheets, is in Characters.
Exercises
1. How many syllables and characters are in the word?
- 中国 Zhōngguó
Answer
2 syllables, 2 characters - 老师 lǎoshī
Answer
2 syllables, 2 characters - 图书馆 túshūguǎn
Answer
3 syllables, 3 characters
2. True or false?
- Chinese verbs change with the person: “I go”, “he goes”.
Answer
False — words never change form. - A yes/no question can be made by adding 吗 at the end.
Answer
True.
Phrase audio — Microsoft speech synthesis (voices Xiaoxiao, Yunyang, Yunxi); syllables and some words — native recordings (audio-cmn, CC BY-SA).