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Learn Chinese with the “Sports Method”

1. Learn “zhe-ge dongxi” and “na-ge dongxi” – which are “this thing” and “that thing”
respectively. When combined with suitable0 arm waving you can now indicate that
you want to look at, buy or eat all kinds of different “dongxi”(things) both near and far away.

2. Add some simple terms – “hao”(good), “wo yao”(I want), “kwai”(fast), “ruf”(hot).
All of these terms can be negated by addition of the universal negating word ”bu”,
for example “bu hao” means “not good”. Now you can describe how you feel about
items “zhe-ge dongxi hao”(this thing is good), properly request an item “wo yao na-ge
dongxi”(I want that thing) and begin to pose simple questions “zhe-ge dongxi kwai bu
kwai?”(Is this fast or not?). A great ice breaker when sitting in a taxi and adds to the
thrill of the side.

3. Now increase to the intermediate level noun set. Most objects can be classified
as: “cai-liao”(material), “she-bei”(equipment/machine), “gong-ju”(tool), “ren”(people)
and “dongxi”(thing).

It would also be good to add “che” at this point(vehicle). For some reason calling a
car “she-bei”(machine) doesn’t quite cut it. Anyway “che” is useful because so many
kinds of vehicles are “che” including “chi-che”(car), ”chu-zu-che”(taxi), “sai-che”(race car).

4. Now this is where you start to impress your mates. The introduction of the
all-powerful comparing word, “bee”. First a word of warning: this is one of the very rare
occasions when a tonal error will cause extreme offence, so get a native Chinese
speaker to help you with your pronunciation. “Zhe-ge dongxi bee na-ge dongxi hao”
(This thing is better than that thing).

5. Nodding and saying “ahhh” in different ways. Perfecting this will enable you to
bluff your way through any part of the conversation you don’t understand, until such
time as something you do understand comes along. In practice, you only need to
know about 10-20% of what happened on a given evening.

6. You’re good to go. With the basic skeleton of the language mastered, you
may continue to add a word or two each day until one day people will describe
you as “being fluent”(mainly by people who can’t understand Chinese of course).
When you don’t know a word, don’t be afraid to build one out of whtat you do
know. If you need to borrow a tape measure for example, most Chinese people
will know that a “da-bu-da de she-bei”, meaning “big or not big equipment”
will be some kind of measuring device.

7. You might end up with a few gaps. For example not so long ago on a rare
clear night in Shanghai, I suddenly felt the need to point to the moon and ask
“na-ge shi shenme dongxi?”(What’s that thing?). It had just occurred to me that
in ten years I had never felt the need to know what the thing was called. Of course
it confirmed Chinese opinion that it’s foggy in London and this poor foreigner had
never seen the moon before.

Turns out the word of moon ”yue” is just the same word they use for month. I
would have guessed that anyway. Learning Chinese is just that easy.

上一篇：On ＂eat＂ the saying goes very interesting
下一篇：The Yangtze River, the Yellow River（长江，黄河）

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