Mandarin is becoming one of the most popular and most common used languages over the world. More and more people start to learn mandarin because of their need for work, their interest or the wide spread of Chinese culture.
As a Chinese teacher in KirinMandarin, I really enjoy teaching my students from different countries. I am happy to see many students with different background working hard to learn Chinese. Their improvement in Mandarin will bring them happiness and make use in their lives and work. Moreover, I am glad to share the Chinese culture with my students during teaching Mandarin. Learning is experiencing, knowing is learning.
Between part of the Chinese characters and similar relationship, as the some as part of the English character spelling, all of languages have part of the similar character. Chinese characters learning not only growing number of words, but also, for easy to mix words do distinguish between process. For example, “大”“犬”“尤”“太”“头” ect words, one dot difference make up several different words. Like these, similar words put together as a group to explain. Emphasize a comparative , there are a lot of help to students memory.
Firstly, it’s very important to learn the Chinese spelling. There are twenty-three initials (e.g. a, o, e, I, u) and twenty-five finals (e.g. b, p, m, f), they’re similar to the English characters but most of them have different pronunciations. However, some of them are similar to English, for example, f (Chinese) pronounces “first”, n (Chinese) pronounces “name”.
There should be more key factors for non-native Chinese speakers to learn Chinese, but once you have the right motivation, get the pronunciation right, and have a clear idea of what you are going to learn (like culture and characters), it is just a matter of time. One last thing is to find the right tools and texts which serve you need and a good teacher will also guide you to the right path. Seize the every opportunity to practice Chinese and make it part of your life. Sooner or later, you will love learning Chinese and find yourself improve a lot.
The most frequently used negation markers in Mandarin Chinese are bu and mei, all translated as English not. They reflect the features of grammatical category of negation in Chinese. Both bu and mei typically negate verbs and adjectives, while mei can also negate nouns indicating the inexistence of something. They are generally in the preverbal (or pre-adjective) position and it is the verb/adjective phrase that is in the scope of negation. In addition to the primary role of bu and mei as markers of negation, they often serve to identify the aspect and time frame of events.
The selection of bu and mei depends on aspectual factors, types of verbs and the point of view.
It takes a lot more than fluent in Mandarin and English to be a good Mandarin teacher, fine communication skills, patience, and good preparation is indispensable. It's an easy mistake to make for students to learn Mandarin as a second language to say it the same way they speak their native language, translating a sentence word by word in to Mandarin, without considering the different ways of expression or grammar. It really is not the end of the world when they do so, enough time and continuous correction must be given before we can expect them to adopt the "Mandarin way of thinking". Encouragement and sense of humor can also nourish their motivation.
SINGAPORE — An additional 1,700 childcare places will be available in the third quarter of the year, with about half of them concentrated in the north and north-east, bringing relief to areas where competition for a spot is stiff.
Announced by the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) yesterday, between 10 and 15 per cent of the enrolment could also be set aside for infant care.
