Unlocking the Chinese Language - sneak peek

The Confucius Institute for Business

Unlocking the Chinese LanguageAn orientation to Chinese language learning taught only at :

SUNY Global Center 116 East 55th Street New York, NY

Instructors: Janet Carmosky and Professor Wen Jing

confuciusbusiness.suny.edu

http://www.confuciusbusiness.suny.edu/

http://www.confuciusbusiness.suny.edu/

• Language competency is not equivalent to China business competency: it is a doorway to understanding culture as well as a communication tool - one of many aspects of China business competency.

Course Philosophy

The best use of language skill in business with China is to take whatever Chinese language skill we can acquire as a foundation for understanding China, its organizations and people, in broader terms.

• Language competency is not equivalent to China business competency: it is a doorway to understanding culture as well as a communication tool - one of many aspects of China business competency.

• For an adult, the first part of learning Chinese language is to learn about Chinese language.

• The relationship between sound, meaning, and the written language bears no resemblance to English or any European language, and is significantly different even from other East Asian languages.

• An orientation will diminish the frustration that comes from expectations that learning Chinese is like learning any other language.

Course Philosophy The best use of language skill in business with China is to take whatever Chinese language skill we can acquire as a foundation for understanding China, its organizations and people, in broader terms.

• Learn what to expect in a process of developing Chinese language skill.

• Gain insights about how Chinese language works – and the ability to interact more confidently with Chinese people.

• Establish a foundation for any program of Chinese language study.

Course Objective

Copyright: Janet Carmosky

The “Table of Elements”: Sound, Meaning, and written language

Source: Lee, Philip Yungkin, Tuttle Publishing 250 Essential Chinese Characters

Source: Janet Carmosky Copyright: Janet Carmosky04/12/2023

6

Stage1. Understand the structure of the

language, and how it affects communication and culture in general

2. Be able to pronounce pinyin consistently – including people’s names

3. Be understood in usage of commonly used phrases

4. Learn some survival industry vocabulary – key government agencies, products, concepts.

5. Enjoy characters and calligraphy6. Consistent reproductions of tones

A Business Perspective: How studying Chinese builds China business competency

BenefitEstablishes, to Chinese counterparts, that you care enough to make an effort.

Starts a more effective “mindset” – one that acknowledges how differently Chinese people may structure their thoughts – and view the world.Demonstrates, when you focus on pronunciation - that you are smart enough to know how the language works.

NO

VICE

BEG

INN

ER

1. Understand the structure of the language, and how it affects communication and culture in general

2. Be able to pronounce pinyin consistently – including people’s names3. Be understood in usage of commonly used phrases4. Learn some survival industry vocabulary – key government agencies, products, concepts5. Enjoy characters and calligraphy6. Consistent reproductions of tones7. Based on knowledge of the written language, create new sentences- not just repeat

stock sentences or terms. Follow conversations with increasing comprehension8. Follow 20+ minutes of Chinese conversation with full comprehension9. Participate in longer and more varied Chinese language conversations,10. Full fluency – ability to persuade as well as follow the development of an idea

Source: Janet Carmosky Copyright: Janet Carmosky

A Business Perspective: How studying Chinese builds China business competency

04/12/20237

Novice Stage


2. Be able to pronounce pinyin consistently – including people’s names

3. Be understood in usage of commonly used phrases


A Business Perspective: Why learn Chinese?

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How it’s useful

It’s the start of a mindset where you can see how differently Chinese people may view the world.It establishes, with Chinese counterparts, that you care enough about their culture to make an effort to learn.A focus on pronunciation demonstrates that you are smart enough to know how the language works.

Who it’s useful for

Anyone who has any dealings with Chinese people.

Beginner Stage

4. Learn some survival industry vocabulary – key government agencies, products, concepts.

5. Enjoy characters and calligraphy6. Consistent reproductions of tones



9

How it’s useful

Knowing the logic behind the formation of language – words as well as organizations – gives you a perspective on Chinese culture and business processes.

Working on very specific vocabulary, characters, and tones will take you much further and must faster up the learning curve than spending time trying to memorize phrases will. Who it’s useful for

Anyone who will deal on an ongoing basis with Chinese people, and who wishes to establish better communication, respect.

Intermediate Stage

7. Based on knowledge of the written language, create new sentences- not just repeat stock sentences or terms. Follow conversations with increasing comprehension

8. Follow 20+ minutes of Chinese conversation with full comprehension



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How it’s useful

Directly communicate with Chinese people

How long it takes to get to this stage

1-3 years, depending on talent and motivation.


People with natural talent in language and real interest in working with China.

Advanced Stage

9. Participate in longer and more varied Chinese language conversations,

10. Full fluency – ability to persuade as well as follow the development of an idea



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How it’s useful

Facilitate communication between Chinese people and non-native speakers.

How long it takes to get to this stage

4 years+, depending on talent and motivation.


People who intend to live and work in China.


2. Be able to pronounce pinyin consistently – including people’s names3. Be understood in usage of commonly used phrases4. Learn some survival industry vocabulary – key government agencies, products, concepts5. Enjoy characters and calligraphy6. Consistent reproductions of tones7. Based on knowledge of the written language, create new sentences- not just repeat

stock sentences or terms. Follow conversations with increasing comprehension8. Follow 20+ minutes of Chinese conversation with full comprehension9. Participate in longer and more varied Chinese language conversations,10. Full fluency – ability to persuade as well as follow the development of an idea


A Business Perspective: 10 levels of Chinese language skill

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Logic is not universal: Warm Up

Logic and language, culture and communication are all related

Christian name Chinese name

Given name, Last name Family name, First nameRobert Collins Collins Robert

Western Address Chinese Address My name My countryMy house number, my street 12345678 codeMy city, my state 12345 My city

My street, my house numberMy name

What is Mandarin?Useful facts about regional speech and dialects

• In the PRC Mandarin is called “putonghua 普通话” and in Taiwan it is called “guoyu 国语” . These

languages have a relationship much like British and American English. That is, accent, vocabulary

and usage make instantly obvious which side of the strait the speaker comes from.

• The difference between Mandarin and Cantonese, or Shanghainese, is more like the span between

French and Portuguese. They broke off the same tree over 1000 years ago.

• Each city and province tends to have its own spoken language conventions. Sichuan Province has

Sichuan Hua, Henan Province has Henan Hua, Tianjin City has Tianjin Hua etc.

The relationship between the official written and spoken language

• The written form that adheres to that grammatical conventions of Mandarin is the official written

language, called Chinese (zhongwen 中文 )

• Dialects abound but there really is only one written language.

Q. What is Mandarin?

A. China’s Official Spoken Language

• The People’s Republic of China has one official spoken language, which many refer to as Mandarin.

(putonghua 普通话 ) It is a spoken language completely intelligible as native or close-to-native

tongue in the most heavily populated areas north of the Yangtze River.

• South of the Yangtze River, dialects not based on Mandarin proliferate – province to province and

even town to town.

• The grammatical structure of Mandarin is based on the speech dominant in Beijing and in the

provinces to the northeast of Beijing.

• The broadcast standard for pronunciation is the Northeastern city of Ha’erbin, not Beijing as many

people think.

More About Mandarin

Useful facts about regional speech and dialects

• In the PRC Mandarin is called “putonghua 普通话” and in Taiwan it is called “guoyu 国语” . These

languages have a relationship much like British and American English. That is, accent, vocabulary

and usage make instantly obvious which side of the strait the speaker comes from.

• The difference between Mandarin and Cantonese, or Shanghainese, is more like the span between

French and Portuguese. They broke off the same tree over 1000 years ago.

• Each city and province tends to have its own spoken language conventions. Sichuan Province has

Sichuan Hua, Henan Province has Henan Hua, Tianjin City has Tianjin Hua etc

The relationship between the official written and spoken language

• The written form that adheres to that grammatical conventions of Mandarin is the official written

language, called Chinese (zhongwen 中文 )

• Dialects abound but there really is only one written language.

Build up over time: spoken language proficiency

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12 months

36 months

2. pinyin ability acquisition

Proficiency

Being understood in Chinese language requires an upfront investment in learning pronunciation. It takes about a year for the organs of speech and hearing to build the neural pathways to differentiate and produce the consonant and vowel sounds. Accurate, “second nature” production of tones takes longer.

Proficiency in speaking Chinese depends on an ability to produce all the sounds in all combinations, combined with comprehension.

skil

l

time

3. repeat basic phrases

Source: Janet Carmosky Copyright:Janet Carmosky

Basic Conversational Capacity

Basic Comprehensibility

6. tone & overall pronunciation ability acquisition

1. context appreciation ability

Three basic facts about Chinese language

Three basic facts about learning the Chinese language#1. It has the world’s best spelling system

Pinyin – which means “spell sound” rhymes - 99.9percent of the time

English spelling Pinyin –which means “spell sound”

Come Home Yang Fang Wang LangBang

Good Food De Te Le Ne

Hasty Nasty Ai Tai Lai Mai

#1. It has the world’s best spelling system

Pinyin – which means “spell sound” rhymes - 99.9percent of the time

English spelling Pinyin –which means “spell sound”

Come Home Yang Fang Wang LangBang

Good Food De Te Le Ne Se Re

Hasty Nasty Dai Tai Lai Nai Sai Wai

#1. It has the world’s best spelling system

Ninety percent of life is just showing up.

Ninety percent of learning Chinese is pronunciation.

Ninety percent of life is just showing up.

About 400 new friends for you: the pinyin table

Three basic facts about learning the Chinese language

#2. It is a monosyllabic and tonal language. Which makes learning it fun.

#2 Monosyllabic, tonal, and fun(may expand your aptitude for music, humor, and language in general)

The classic example the syllable spelled “ma”, showing four of its most common meanings, in four different tones.

ma 妈 (n) mother

ma 马 (n) horse

ma 麻 (n) hemp

ma 骂 (v) curse

Virtually every one of the 420 syllables correlates to more than one character (unit of meaning)

Characters and Words: what’s the difference?

Show page from Chinese pinyin dictionary – with bullet about zi 字 and ci 词

One character equals one syllable equals one unit of

meaning.

我 Wo3 I, me 开 Kai1

open

你 Ni2 you 人 Ren2

person, people

他 Ta1 he, him 笔 Bi3

writing implement

Literacy is defined by knowing 3,000 characters. More

educated people may recognize 6,000 of more characters.

There may be as many at 10,000 characters in total.

Many units of meaning are described by two or three

syllables.

普通 Pu3 Tong1 common, usual

普通话 Pu3 Tong1Hua4 Mandarin (common

language)

There are at least 100,000 expressions or “words”.

Expressions 4 or more characters long are usually

technical or specialized.

通货膨胀 Tong1Huo2 Peng 3Zhang4 inflation


#3. It has almost no rules of grammar.

The fact that the unit of meaning and sound is a character means there can be no endings – that is, • No word gender• No conjugations• No declensions • No singular or plural

Wo3 Qu4 我去 means I go I am goingI will goI went

you can speak grammatically correct Mandarin from Day One.


Wanna be fluent? All you have to do is:1) Read this table accurately 2) Hit first, fourth and second tones

consistently3) Have a good memory 4) Keep listening and speaking

How the written language worksTypesetting• The most common typesetting is horizontal row, from left to right, which is influenced by Western

convention.• Characters can also be typeset in columns the read from top to bottom: the columns may follow

an order from right to left or from left to right.

Writing a character• Each character has a number of strokes - which need to be written in the proper order or the

character is technically “mis-spelled”• Groups of strokes that are used over and over are called “Radicals”. “Radicals” have names, and

they are combined to build up the meaning and phonetic aspects of an idea so that it becomes a word.

Characters and Words: what’s the difference?

One character equals one syllable equals one unit of

meaning.

我 Wo3 I, me 开 Kai1

open

你 Ni2 you 人 Ren2

person, people

他 Ta1 he, him 笔 Bi3

writing implement

Literacy is defined by knowing 3,000 characters. More

educated people may recognize 6,000 of more characters.

There may be as many at 10,000 characters in total.

How the written language works

How the written language worksTypesetting• The most common typesetting is horizontal

row, from left to right, which is influenced by Western convention.

• Characters can also be typeset in columns the read from top to bottom: the columns may follow an order from right to left or from left to right.


Writing a character• Each character has a number of strokes - which need to be written in the proper

order or the character is technically “mis-spelled”• Groups of strokes that are used over and over are called “Radicals”. “Radicals”

have names, and they are combined to build up the meaning and phonetic aspects of an idea so that it becomes a word.


Simplified Traditional

jian2dan1 (simple) 简单 (19 strokes) 簡單 (28 strokes)

fei1ji 1 (airplane) 飞机飛機

Forms of writing• In order to raise the literacy of the population, the PRC reduced the number of strokes needed

to write many characters, resulting in “simplified characters” (jiantizi 简体字 ) • Simplified characters are used in the PRC, Malaysia and Singapore. • The Traditional (long form) characters sets are still taught and used in Hong Kong, Taiwan and

Macao

Structure of Chinese language: Neurological & social impact

Writing has to be learned by rote Alphabetic systems use lateral thinking

Everything is contextual Good writing stands alone

Persuasion by imagery, allusion Persuasion requires logic

Hao le 好了All doneI’m feeling better nowThat’s enoughIt’s good!

Chinese language English language

Language competency is one piece of China business competency. It is a doorway to understanding Chinese culture.

The first part of learning Chinese language is to learn about Chinese language

The best use of language skill in business with China is to take whatever Chinese language skill we can acquire as a foundation for understanding China, its organizations and people, in broader terms.

Course Philosophy

Questions?

Unlocking the Chinese Language - sneak peek

Education

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