一步一个脚印

Similar to the textbooks I wrote and published here on English – Basic Spoken English and Basic Spoken English American English Edition  – I thought I would make one for Chinese as well.

This basic Chinese textbook will have about 20 lessons or so, and is targetted at beginning students in Mandarin.

Hope you find it useful!

Listen and download Lesson 1 of Basic Spoken Chinese

Basic Spoken Chinese – Lesson 1: 好 hǎo, “good”

Lesson 1: 好 hǎo, “good”

Literally: “good”. Can also mean “OK”.

Examples:

1) 你好，你找谁？
Nǐ hǎo, nǐ zhǎo shéi?

Hello. Who you are looking for?

2) 他这个人很好。
Tā zhè ge rén hěn hǎo.

He is a good person.

3) 好的，谢谢。
Hǎo de, xièxie.

OK. Thank you.

New words:

好 hǎo (adj.): good e.g. 好看 hǎokàn (“looks good”), 好吃 hǎochī (“tastes good”), 好听hǎotīng (“sounds good”), etc.

你 nǐ (pron.): you (sing.) e.g. 你看 nǐ kàn (“[you] look!”), 你吃 nǐ chī (“[you] eat!”)，你听 nǐ tīng ([you] listen!”)

是 shì (v.): to be; is (used n. + 是 + n. only) e.g. 这是谁 zhè shì shéi (“who is this”), 他是老师 tā shì lǎoshī (“he is a teacher”), 这是我家 zhè shì wǒ jiā (“this is my home”), etc.

找 zhǎo (v.): to look for e.g. 他找工作 tā zhǎo gōngzuò (“he is looking for work”), 我要找新朋友 wǒ yào zhǎo xīn péngyou (“I want to make new friends”), etc.

谁 shéi (pron.): who e.g. 你是谁 nǐ shì shéi (“who are you”), 我们的老师是谁 wǒmen de lǎoshī shì shéi “who is our teacher”), etc.

他 tā (pron.): him; he e.g. 我认识他 wǒ rènshi tā (“I know him”)

这个 zhège (pron.): this; this one e.g. 这个学生很用功 zhège xuéshēng hěn yònggōng (“this student studies very hard”), 这个房间不是我的 zhège fángjiān bù shì wǒ de (“this room is not mine”), etc.

人 rén (n.): person; people e.g. 那人是谁 nà rén shì shéi (“who is that person”), 有人敲门了 yǒurén qiāomén le (“someone knocked on the door”), etc.

很 hěn (adv.): very (used n. + 很 + adj.) e.g. 他很高兴 tā hěn gāoxìng (“he is very pleased”),我很喜欢 wǒ hěn xǐhuān (“I like it very much”), etc.

好的 hǎo de (interj.): okay; all right; no worries e.g. 我们走吧——好的 wǒmen zǒu ba – hǎo de (“let’s go – OK”).

谢谢 xièxie (interj.): thanks; thank you e.g. 谢谢你的帮助 xièxie nǐ de bāngzhù (“thanks for your help”)

Did you know?

The character 好 is made up of two components – 女 nǚ “woman” and 子 zǐ “child”. The widely accepted origin of this character is that “woman” and “child” were put together to form a compound because it was good for a woman to have a child. Scholars have also proposed that the compound originally referred to the mutual affection between the mother and child, which then extended to mean “good”.