Learn To Speak Mandarin

Moving beyond the basics of Chinese into deep waters

Learning to speak Mandarin as a foreigner in Shanghai can lead to awkward, but funny, moments. While most locals are forgiving and give credit for your effort, mistakes in professional situations, even small mispronunciations, can be fatal.

Last year I was moderating a high-tech venture capital panel in Beijing. One of the speaker's surnames was Ye, which is quite common in China and should be pronounced in the fourth tone. His name was to be followed by Zong, which means head or chief.

While on stage, I mixed up the tones and repeatedly addressed him as "Ye Zong," in the third tone. In short, I was calling him "Chief Love Child" the entire time. Fortunately, he was a good sport about the mix-up.

My colleagues were not so forgiving. When I learned that I had passed the HSK (Chinese Language Proficiency) Level 3 exam, I joyfully announced to the entire office that I was now officially a Level 3 HSK student. I stood in front my office and proudly yelled out: "Wo shi san ji ren!"

After a brief, uncomfortable silence, all the employees burst into laughter. I had said, "I am an X-rated adult movie star!" My co-workers have yet to let me forget that mistake.

Mixing up tones wasn't my only flaw. Add cultural differences and you have the perfect recipe for laughs. Once I was playing foosball with office mates and every time any of them won a match, they would modestly declare, "Yunqi, yunqi." I assumed, correctly, that was the polite way of displaying modesty but I didn't bother to understand what it meant.

A few days later in a business meeting, in response to my client's praise of my Chinese, I replied: "Yunqi, yunqi." When they all started laughing at me, I knew something was wrong. I later found out that yunqi means luck. In short, I told him I speak Chinese only because of good luck.

My good luck didn't extend to understanding Chinese either. I often nod my head to indicate I understand what I'm hearing, but in fact, I have it all wrong. Once I hosted an American colleague to a team dinner and as host, I took responsibility for being his translator. The conversation turned to the whereabouts of one of our Chinese colleagues and someone said, "Ta tai wan le." I quickly translated with confidence, "they said he is in Taiwan." I was caught red-faced when our tardy Chinese colleague showed up to dinner a few minutes later. "Ta tai wan le" means "he is really late" and has nothing to do with Taiwan.

Learn to Speak Mandarin Utilizing Online Resources | Study Chinese ...

Sadly many do not get this chance. With ones busy lifestyle most of us find it hard to fit in daily chores let alone hours of learning a brand new language that's not in our mother tongue. Mandarin, also known as the hardest language in the world to learn is at the top of a lot of people's lists however if you are determined and know the right places to go to learn to speak In this economical climate, a lot of us worry about the costs of things and a local teaching class held at a college can be quite costly so we put off trying to learn to speak Mandarin for the time being. Also another downside to these classes is that especially if you are at a beginner level, you could find the process to be tiring and long winded. So if you look at the prices for online lessons you will be able to see a huge difference learn to speak Mandarin when you learn online to that of face to face classes at a learning institution. you will soon be shoved into a classroom full of other hopefuls all eager to master this beautiful and intricate language. And this means extra stress to keep up with them and the course as its often fast moving.

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