It’s been suggested that I might give you students some beginner Chinese lessons to work with. But since I’m not too sure what level you are all at, I’m going to try to start from the bottom with a little bit of a primer below. As always, please feel to let me know what you think!

Written Chinese is composed of ideograms, like Egyptian hieroglyphs. Every symbol corresponds to a single word. Here are some simple symbols, let’s worry about the pronunciations later:

一 a horizontal line. You guessed it, the number “1”
大 means “big,” or “large.” Does it look like a stick figure person? Picture a person with their arms and legs spread out.
田 means a “field” or “crop.” It sort of looks like a grid, doesn’t it? You can imagine how four squares placed together might symbolise a farmer’s crops.

Although there’s about 50,000+ symbols in the Chinese language, only about 2,000 or so are required to be able to read a newspaper. Don’t worry, many symbols are combinations of simpler symbols. Take for example, this symbol: 天  It’s composed of the symbols we learned above. What does it mean when you write 1 horizontal line above the word for “large”? Any guesses? 天 is the symbol for “sky” or “heaven.” These combinations not only provide a rich tapestry of ancient connotations but also a deeper understanding of Chinese cultural origins. 

Now you know four Chinese symbols already.  🙂

Like English, Chinese is known as an “SVO” (Subject-Verb-Object) language, meaning that word order defines context and sentences are constructed in much the same way as English: The subject does an action; followed by the verb; and then the object is the recipient of the action.

Let’s look at a simple sentence:

我们去世博

The first two characters are the subject; the third character is the verb; and the last two characters are the object.

我们 is pronounced “wǒ men.” (For more information on how to pronounce Chinese words, see here) Depending on which side of the verb it appears, 我 means either “I” or “me,” and the suffix 们 is special character added at the end of a pronoun to signify a plural. Therefore 我们 written together means “we” or “us,” (“we” in this example, since it is the subject).

去 is pronounced “qù.” It’s the verb that means “to go.” 

世博 is “shì bó,” meaning “expo.”

So when we put it all together:

我们去世博
wǒ men qù shì bó
We go (to the) expo.

Notice that the preposition “to” and the definite article “the” are implied. Also note that verbs do not need to be conjugated in Chinese. Past/future tense and active/passive voice are done by adding various suffixes or prefixes. (I have a feeling that’s maybe why Chinese students studying English seem to have problems with conjugation, prepositions, and articles. So I see a lot of “He go washroom” or “She give book” when I teach my Chinese students English).