Did You Just Say “Middle” or “Clock”?

Hi!

Thank you for your emails asking me for information about Global Talk, my Mandarin Chinese Flashcard program for the Macintosh. I’m receiving a lot of email now, and I cannot wait to ship it. I know, I’m about 6-months late, but it is ever so close to being ready for primetime. Thank you so much for your patience.

In the meantime, those of you more experienced in Mandarin may wish to have a good chuckle at my expense. A couple of weeks ago, I was studying very hard for my Mandarin course when something finally dawned on me for the very first time. I was always under the impression that a particular Pinyin word with a specific tone was unique. Not so!

There I am, studying in my book, when I come across the word for clock, zhōng (钟 simplified, 鐘 traditional). “Wait a minute”, I said outloud. “Am I going crazy, or wasn’t the word for China itself, zhōng (中) ?!”. Of course, it is! But, wait, I thought zhōng also meant middle or center. Of course, that’s right as well. Hey, at least the characters are different.

Oh my, so that means that my vocabulary words in Chinese are also context-sensitive. It wouldn’t make sense if a friend asked me to go to “clock” with him. But, he would certainly use the word zhōng. Interestingly enough, if you type zhōng into an online Chinese dictionary, you’ll find more than even these three words. My search produced eleven results, one of which was “restless” (彸). I’m feeling a little restless just thinking about it!

At any rate, enjoy a laugh at my expense, and I hope this gives you just another tidbit of information into this fascinating and sometimes confusing language.

Enjoy,

– bk

Measure Words in Mandarin Chinese

Greetings!

First, a fast apology. It’s been almost one month since I’ve blogged, which is not good! I have been pushing hard to get Global Talk ready for distribution, and my side business has been going exponential with business recently. Both of which are very exciting! OK, let’s talk about another concept in Mandarin that I finally understand and wanted to share with you.

In Mandarin Chinese, certain words are dedicated “measure words”. Let’s consider a simple example. Let’s say, in English, I asked the guy behind the counter at my favorite electronics store, “Excuse me, how much does this MP3 player cost?” The individual behind the counter would say, “Sixty dollars”. “dollars” in this sentence implies US currency and is the noun in the individual’s response. But, I could also say, “Hey, guess what, I found five dollars on the floor!” Again, I have used the term “dollar” as a noun.

If we consider a similar response by a Mandarin speaker in an electronics store, he or she would say, “Liùshí kuài.” It’s interesting that kuài (块) here is a measure word, specifically for money. It does not mean “money” or “dollar” in and of itself. In Mandarin, that word is qián (钱, simplified). So, I do not find 块 lying about on the floor, but instead I find 钱 lying on the floor.

In Mandarin, there are generic measure words like 个 (ge), 斤 (jīn), 位 (wèi), and many others. So, when learning Mandarin Chinese vocabulary, pay very close attention to whether or not the word is a verb, noun, adverb, or something native English speakers are not familiar with … the measure word.

Good Luck with your studying and speaking,

– bk