OOC/IC Standard Level of Chinese--Volume 1 textbook Chinese

PREFACE of Volume 1

Volume 1 is focused on the pronunciation of Chinese. You may ask: how is it possible to learn all the pronunciations? There are so many characters in Chinese! The answer is: we teach the Pinyin(拼音) system.

WHAT IS PINYIN?
Have you ever used phonetic symbols to help yourself pronounce English words (e.g Chinese(chai-NIIS))? Well, Pinyin is like that. With less than 26 letters(yes we use English letters in the pinyin system) it helps you know the pronunciation of every Chinese character!

WHY LEARN PINYIN?
After you've mastered this skill, you'll be able to read any article out loud with the help of it. It also makes pronouncing characters right easier!

The aim of volume 1 is to help learners master this skill.

Syllabus

Unit 1: simple vowels
Lesson 1: vowel 'a'1 & the tones
Lesson 2: vowels 'o' 'e' 'i'
Lesson 3: vowels 'u' 'ü' & a review of six simple vowels
Unit 1 Exercise

Unit 2 : consonants
Lesson 4: consonants 'b' 'p' 'm' 'f'
Lesson 5: consonants 'd' 't' 'n' 'l'
Lesson 6: consonants 'g' 'k' 'h'
Lesson 7: consonants 'j' 'q' 'x'
Lesson 8: consonants 'y' 'w'
Lesson 9: consonants 'z' 'c' 's'
Lesson 10: consonants 'zh' 'ch' 'sh'
Unit 2 Exercise

Unit 3: complex vowels
Lesson 11: vowels 'ai' 'ao' 'an' 'ang'
Lesson 12: vowels 'ei' 'en' 'eng' 'ong'
Lesson 13: vowels related to 'u'
Lesson 14: symbol cautions of complex vowels
Unit 3 Exercise

Final Exercise

1: to tell pinyin letters from English letters, every pinyin letter is written in ''single quotation marks

written by Cassie Jiang 26.2.26

Unit 1 SIMPLE VOWELS

first of all, pinyin, as I have explained before, is a way of making pronunciation of Chinese clear. In English, we have aeiou as the vowels, in China we've got sth similar. it's a o e i u ü do keep in mind that most of them are pronounced differently than we pronounce them in English

Upon finishing this unit, you are expected to be able to...
1. know clearly what tones are, be able to identify tones
2. know what the six simple vowels are, be able to pronounce them in different tones
3. know the vowels of some simple characters

LESSON 1: vowel 'a' and the tones 1

Part 1: 'a'
Let's start with the first pinyin vowel 'a'
'a': it sounds like ahhh~(not that long of course), the sound you make when you sing a song without lyrics. You can find them in the pronunciation of characters like coffee: 咖啡，the pinyin of the character 咖 is kā；tea:茶，the pinyin of it is chá (you can search for the pronunciation by copying the characters I typed if you're not sure about the exact pronunciation)

Part 2 : tones
by now you may be able to have a brief vision of what 'a' sounds like, you might be curious about the small line above 'a' when I typed the pinyin above. like ā á, this is called the tone, there are four in all, ā á ǎ(ooh I can't type this, the v line should be right above a) and à.

every single character's pronunciation chooses one of the four tones, we call them(by the sequence above): the first tone, the second tone, and the third and the fourth(一声、二声、三声、四声). In this lesson, we'll show you the tones by using 'a' as an example. keep in mind that only vowels, simple or complex, have tones. listen to the characters: 妈(mother) 麻(hemp) 马(horse) and 骂(scold) now or after you finish this lesson to have a brief understanding of what tones are.

this, I suppose, is the biggest difference between Chinese and English pronunciation, I haven't heard concepts such as tones in English and similar languages. And this is the quickest way to identify if the speaker is a skilled one or not. We'll look at them one by one.

First tone. this is the easiest. when you are pronouncing garden, the way you pronounce the a is exactly the way you pronounce "a" with the first tone. It's plain and flat, like a cutie little bird in waiting position. you can find the sound ā in the pronunciation of characters like 拉(pull) 沙(sand) 抓(catch) 妈(mother)

Second tone, in English, similar sounds are usually pronounced in interrogative sentences. Second tones are like birds rising into the air, so the tone goes continuously upward. Imagine that someone tells you you won the first place of a contest that you did not expect yourself to win. You will probably go 'Ah?' that's the second tone of 'a' you can find the tones 'á' in the characters like 滑(slide) 啥(what) 拿(take)

Third tone(it's symbol should be the v top-right of the a). This is kind of difficult, but by now you might know why the lines above vowels are drawn like ˉ ˊ ˇ ˋ, because that's how your sound's frequency goes. For the first tone, it remains unchanged, for the second tone, it rises. A skill of learning tones is to move your head in the shape of the tone's symbol while you pronounce the sound. Back to the third tone, the sound goes down and then back up, like your bird diving down and then getting back up. This may require a bit more practise. you can find the tones 'ǎ' in characters like 马(horse) 傻(dumb) 耍(play/fool) 卡(card) 塔(tower)

Fourth tone is the bird returning to the ground. You pronounce English sounds in this tone in exclamation words. Imagine thinking for an hour and finally solve a maths problem, you'll probably say, 'Ah! I got it!' the way you pronounce Ah here is like the fourth tone. you can find the tones à in characters like 辣(spicy) 骂(scold) 那(then/there) 爸(father)

alright, I think that's enough for today. To further practise what we learnt today, I suggest doing the following:
1. listen to the characters I stated above: 拉(pull) 沙(sand) 抓(catch) 妈(mother) 滑(slide) 啥(what) 拿(take) 马(horse) 傻(dumb) 耍(play/fool) 卡(card) 塔(tower) 辣(spicy) 骂(scold) 那(then/there) 爸(father) and have a basic understanding of the four tones of 'a'
2. listen to the characters: 妈(mother) 麻(hemp) 马(horse) and 骂(scold) for three times and feel the difference between the four tones, they are respectively 'ma' in the first, second, third and fourth tone.
3. try to pronounce the characters in 1&2, all except 抓(catch) should be easy to pronounce.
4 * .(optional) research for more characters with the vowel 'a' and point out their tones
1: first written in the owls with @Yexian Wei by Cassie

Lesson 2: Vowels 'o' 'e' & 'i'

Part 1: review of lesson 1
After learning lesson 1, I suppose you must have a basic understanding of what tones are and how the vowel 'a' is pronounced. Now try to pronounce 'a' twice in each of the four tones. If you find any difficulties in doing this, review lesson 1

Part 2: the pronunciation of the vowel 'o'
Read the word 'lore' aloud. Find the pronunciation of the letter 0 and bingo, you can pronounce the first tone of the vowel 'o' to further understand the pronunciation of 'o', listen to the pronunciation of the characters--窝(burrow) 锅(pot) 脱(take clothes off) 摸(touch) 戳(poke) you may get the pronunciation of 'o' in the first tone clearly. a trick to doing so is to move your mouth into the shape of an O, and pronounce the sound with the shape unchanged.

Before listening to any more characters, try to pronounce the second, third and fourth tone yourself (ō、ó、ǒ、ò). Think about how the different tones of 'a' were pronounced.

The second tone of the vowel 'o'-- ó can be found in the characters--模(model) 罗(a Chinese surname) 挪(move) 国(country)

The third tone of the vowel 'o'--ǒ can be found in the characters--我(I/me) 所(place) 抹(wipe) 左(left)

The fourth tone of the vowel 'o'--ò can be found in the characters--弱(weak) 漠(desert) 过(pass) 卧(lie-lay-lain)

do keep in mind that the English translation is just for reference. Many Chinese characters mean completely different in different words. For example, the character 漠 means desert in the word沙漠, but it means indifferent in the word漠然

Part 3 the pronunciation of 'e'
Ever pronounced the sound 'eugh'? If yes, then you are close to pronouncing the fourth tone of 'e'
to be edited