Start A Comprehensive Guide to Mandarin Chinese EP1

Hi! Hello! Welcome to Rossman's Mandarin Garden. I'm Rossman. This is an in-depth Mandarin learning channel for all the curious. Here, we don't just teach you how to use the language, but how to understand it, revealing the big picture of Chinese culture and its way of thinking. We'll look into the differences between Eastern and Western thought patterns as reflected in their languages, from surface features to deeper principles. As the very first episode, today we're going to tackle a seemingly simple but surprisingly confusing question. What exactly is Mandarin Chinese? Maybe you've been learning Chinese for a while, or maybe you've been thinking about it or learning another different language, but still have no idea what it really is or where to begin. So, I think this episode will help clear things up a bit and give you something to build on, like a map, to help you navigate your learning journey. In today's lesson, I'll clarify four questions for you. First, the definition of Mandarin and the languages Chinese people speak. Second, the importance of our written system and its role in our culture. Third, the origin of Mandarin Chinese and the reasons for its prevalence. Fourth, the main features of modern Mandarin in writing, phonology, vocabulary, and grammar. Sounds a bit complicated, right? But don't worry, trust me, you'll have a much clearer view after today's lesson. So, let's start! Today, in terms of speaker numbers and global influence, the most important language families are Indo-European languages, Sino-Tibetan languages, Afro-Asiatic languages, Niger-Congo languages, and Austronesian languages. The Indo-European languages, represented by English, French, German, Spanish, and Russian, have over 3 billion speakers, while Sino-Tibetan languages, represented by Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese, have about 1.4 billion speakers. We all know the dominance of English as a global lingua franca, but due to various reasons, currently Chinese is also gaining more and more global attention. In many official documents, you'll hear this phrase, Chinese is the most spoken native language in the world, with over 900 million native speakers. So, how do we explain this phrase? Obviously, China's population is much larger than that number. Here's the fact, Chinese is not one single language. The idea that all Chinese people speak one language is one of the most common misconceptions about China. When we talk about the 900 million native speakers of Chinese, or when we hear Chinese in government announcements and official media, they are referring to the language spoken by the Han ethnic group, which makes up about 92% of China's population. That's why the language is also called Hanyu, which literally means Han language. Its standard form, often translated as Mandarin, is China's national language, called Putonghua in mainland China, and Guoyu in Taiwan. Besides standard Mandarin, China has a huge number of regional dialects and dozens of minority languages. All of these combined are what people broadly refer to as Chinese. The dialect system in China is very, very complex. Generally, we're divided into seven major groups. Each of these groups also has its own sub-branches. But this is a bit misleading here. They are called dialects in China, but the accents and pronunciations can vary drastically and are often mutually unintelligible. Here are some dialects in China. Listen carefully. See if you can spot the differences. They are quite different, right? Actually, Mandarin and Cantonese are so different that they could almost be considered two separate languages. This is why many foreign learners after studying Mandarin for a while still find themselves completely lost and frustrated when they first arrive in China and try to communicate with local people. That's understandable and very common. Now you may wonder, how do Chinese people communicate across such speaking divides? Here, I'm going to explain the most unique feature of Chinese, its written system. Apart from the promotion and wide usage of Mandarin, there's something special to Chinese. We have a single written script. Even though various regions have their own dialects and our spoken languages are different, we all share a single written system, Chinese characters, which are not phonetic. This shared script has been one of the fundamental reasons for cultural and political unity in China for over 2,000 years. If you know something about Chinese history, you must have heard the name Qin Shi Huang, also known as the first emperor of China. After conquering the six warring kingdoms and founding the Qin dynasty, he issued a series of reforms to solidify his rule, including the standardization of the written language. Qin Shi Huang was accused of being a cruel and tyrannical emperor, but he had great political ambition and ability. He planned for his empire to last forever, ruled by him and his posterity. A unified script was crucial for centralized governance, ensuring that imperial decrees were passed down accurately. But sadly, the Qin dynasty collapsed shortly after he died, lasting only 15 years. However, his concepts for governing were adopted by all later emperors in China. Chinese characters since their unification in 221 BC have continued to this day. Even if you're not familiar with this emperor and his dynasty, the English word China actually comes from the ancient pronunciation of Qin, the name of this very dynasty. The word traveled westward via India, Persia, and the Arab world, and eventually reached Europe. By the 16th century, China had become the established term for the country, and later it also came to mean the fine porcelain that China was renowned for. What about Mandarin? We're talking about Mandarin. Where did that come from? Well, we'll get into it. Mandarin Chinese was born in the early 20th century. Before that, China had no single spoken standard. The written language was unified, but the spoken language was fragmented. There was a common form used by bureaucrats and scholars called Guan Hua, which literally means official speech. But it differed across regions and was not widely used by the general public. In the early 20th century, China's last imperial dynasty, the Qin dynasty, collapsed. There's an award-winning film called The Last Emperor, directed by the famous Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci. The film was shot on the location inside the Forbidden City, which was a huge privilege, highly recommended if you are interested. In 1912, the Republic of At that time, a wave of modern, western-inspired reforms flooded into this ancient and struggling country. To modernize communication, education, and national identity, a national standard language was proposed. Based primarily on the Beijing dialect, with references to other northern varieties, the word Mandarin originally referred to Chinese scholar-officials during the Ming and Qing dynasties. European traders and missionaries later used the same word to describe the language used by these officials. Guan Hua we mentioned earlier. Over time, the term Mandarin became the default label for China's official language in the English-speaking world. But you may ask, why choose the Beijing and northern dialects as the standard? There are several reasons. First, Beijing was then, and still is, the political center of the country. Second, northern dialects cover a much larger population in China. Third, the phonetic system of northern dialects is relatively simple. Fewer tones, regular syllable structure, making it easier to promote. In contrast, southern dialects, like Cantonese, have far more complex tonal systems. So, Putonghua in mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan are both descended from this original standard. They are indeed very similar. For learners, the differences are very subtle. In terms of specifics, Putonghua uses neutral tones and a retroflex ending sound called Erhua. More often, its tone-changing rules are slightly different from Taiwan's Guoyu. Okay, after all these historical backgrounds, let's answer the key question. What kind of language is modern Mandarin? In summary, modern Mandarin is a logographic language. Each character is a single syllable with a specific tone. Its vocabulary is dominated by diasyllabic words, and its grammar relies heavily on word order and function words. Let's unpack them one by one, writing, phonology, vocabulary, and grammar. As we mentioned, Chinese characters are not phonetic like English letters. The shape of a character often carries its own meaning, originating and evolving from pictograms and ideograms. Take the character Mu, for example. It resembles a tree. Its original meaning was a plant growing out of the earth, and it was later extended to mean wood. The character Ru is a drawing of the sun, and the traditional character Dong, combining tree and Ru together, represents the sun rising in the east through the trees at dawn. This beautiful character became the symbol for the direction east. It's our ancestors' rich imagination that created such a lasting written language. The most distinctive feature of Chinese is its tones. Each character corresponds to one syllable and one specific pitch contour. Take the classic example ma, ma, ma, ma. Ma means mother, ma means hemp or numb, ma means horse, ma means scold or swear. However, the sound system of Mandarin is relatively simple and regular. There are no consonant clusters, and most syllables have just one consonant, followed by a vowel or compound vowel. There are over 400 base syllables. With the addition of tones, we get over 1,000 different sounds. Currently, there are about 8,000 characters still in use. That is, while each character has a corresponding sound, it doesn't mean each of them has a unique sound. In Mandarin, homophones are everywhere. For example, all these characters sound the same. In Chinese, a character isn't always a word. Sometimes, a single character can be a word, like some pronouns, ni, wo, or some verbs, pao, tiao. But in modern Mandarin, diasyllabic words are just dominant. That means most words have two characters. Unlike English, which often uses prefixes and suffixes to form new words, Chinese often uses compounding methods. Combining two meaningful morphemes to form a new word is similar to English compounds, like bookstore or blackboard. The result is, even though the number of Chinese characters is limited, the capacity for creating new words is amazingly powerful and gracefully concise. For example, Similar to English, Chinese sentences follow a subject-verb-object word order. But here's the difference. Chinese has no verb conjugations, no plural endings, and no grammatical gender. Instead, context, word order, and particles are the keys to understanding. Let's look at the aspect particles, for example. Zhe means ongoing action. Le means completion. Guo means experience. He's watching this TV show. He watched this TV show. He has watched this TV show before. As you can see, in these three sentences, we add different particles to indicate the aspect of the action, watch. Without conjugations, Chinese may seem easier at the beginning stage. However, the flexibility of word classes and the importance of context often confuse higher level learners. For example, Do you know the difference between these two sentences? The first one, The second one, The only difference lies in the position of the verb, whether it comes before or after the subject. But the change in word order is not random. In Chinese, we normally present information from O to N when the verb comes before the subject. It indicates that the subject is new, non-specific, or unexpected information. This kind of word order change is very common in Chinese. In the upcoming episodes, I'll break down these features further, helping you understand the essence of the language. At the end of this video, I want to say, learning any language is like walking through a labyrinth. The journey can feel endless and daunting, especially when learning a language as rich and nuanced as Chinese. But don't doubt yourself and don't give up too early. This channel will be here with you throughout this journey, like a walking stick or a map, offering some support, encouragement, and insight. Okay, that's all for today's video. It's a long, long, detailed intro video. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments. You can also download the free PDF material for this episode. The link is in the description. Besides my online courses, I also offer one-on-one Mandarin lessons, so feel free to check out my website for more details. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe. Your support means a lot to me. See you next time. Bye!