A bit of basic Chinese

After discussing the more theoretical, but essential lessons about Chinese language, let’s learn some basic expressions.

A: 你好！
    Nǐ hǎo!
B: 你好！我   叫李娜，你呢？
    Nǐ hǎo! Wǒ jiào Lǐnà,   nǐ ne?
A: 我   叫   小玉。
    Wǒ jiào Xiǎoyù.
B: 你好   吗？
    Nǐ hǎo ma?
A: 我    很   好。谢谢。
    Wǒ hěn hǎo. Xièxiè.

你好 (literally “you-good”) means “hello”. It’s the greeting form you will find in textbooks, but in real life 你好 is generally used between persons who don’t know each other and meet for the first time. But expressions like “嘿” (hēi - hey) or “嗨” (hāi – from the English “hi”) are more frequently used among youngsters. Sometimes it is also possible to hear expressions like 你吃了吗？ (nǐ chīle ma? – have you eaten?), by now only used by old people or 你来了！ (nǐ láile! – you came!). There is also the form 您好 (Nín hǎo) where 您 is the polite form.

叫 means “to be called”, hence the sentence 我叫李娜 means “My name is Lina”. Now let’s see the other personal pronouns:

我 wǒ - I
你 nǐ - you
他 tā – he
她 tā - she
它 tā – it

The three forms of third-person singular (masculine, feminine and neutral) are pronounced exactly in the same way, but they differ in writing. On the left side of the masculine pronoun there is 亻that is the contraction of the radical 人 (rén – person), while on the left side of the feminine one there’s 女 (nǚ – woman). The neutral personal pronoun 它, on the contrary, has a form on its own. You can also find the variation 牠 (tā) used more often for animals.

To form plural personal pronouns, you simply add the character们 (men) that indicates plurality. Therefore we will have:

我们 wǒmen - we
你们 nǐmen - you
他们 tāmen – they (masculine)
她们 tāmen – they (feminine)
它们 tāmen – they (neutral)

The final particle 呢 doesn’t have a tone and a real meaning per se. It is used to avoid making a question about something that has already been mentioned before. Thus, looking back at the aforementioned short dialogue we have

我叫李娜，你呢？
[I be called Lina, you MOD]
I’m Lina, and you?

Lastly, 你好吗？means “how are you?”. The question is made up by adding the particle 吗 to the greeting form 你好. Like 呢, it also doesn’t have a tone and a meaning and it is used to make a question.

Similar to the greeting form, there are different more colloquial ways sto say “how are you”?”, such us 你怎么样？corresponding to “how are things?, what’s up?”. The answers can vary. The most common are 我很好 (I’m fine), 还可以 (_hái kěyǐ_– not so bad) or 还不错 (hái bùcuò – not bad).

Background cover picture by Paul Gilmore