Curiosities of mandarin from a foreign learner

I am currently learning Mandarin Chinese and while I still have much progress to make I have begun to appreciate the subtleties of it. I love the unique personality emanating from every communication system and this is no exception. Every language is an invitation to another culture, or philosophy, a fascinating window to another worldview. As such, let me point out some details of Mandarin Chinese that could pique your curiosity whether you expect to learn it or not someday. Who knows, this might be the push you need to start studying it. Or, if you‘re already familiar with it, this could spur your appreciation of it. From its unique sounds, sentence structures and its infamous writing system, here‘s to you.

Symbols and radicals

First things first, we have to talk about its famous writing system. Mandarin Chinese (traditional or simplified) has thousands of characters, each representing a different concept. In that way, words are made by combining concepts. For example, a Chinese person would be “中国人“ which is literally middle-country person. As such, you can generally make a good guess at what words mean by learning distinct characters. But what I love most is how the same structure is used on the characters themselves. This is what is called “radicals“. Radicals are components of characters, appearing over and over again in characters with similar meanings or roots. Take or previous example: “人“. As a radical, it appears in this form “ 亻“. In that way, the character “ 亻中“ can mean middle child. Many characters comprise a pairing of a radical, hinting at the meaning of the word, and a phonetic element hinting at the sound of the word itself. Radicals are also how words in Mandarin dictionaries are generally classified. This aspect is not unique to Chinese Mandarin but its popularity can be largely attributed to it. I found this aspect quite fascinating, opening up to new perspectives in symbolism. From what I heard, modern Korean scripts use this aspect to the extreme. Quite curious to find out by myself.

All in the ton

You might have heard that Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language. Well, what does this really mean? It means that the way sounds are pronounced impacts their meaning. English does use tonality, but mainly to distinguish grammatical sentences and not to shift the meaning of words themselves. For example, notice how you pronounce differently “him“ in “You saw him.“ and “You saw him?“. In Mandarin, this is taken to another level. The sound “ma“ is a classic example: “mā“ could mean “mother“, but “mǎ“ would be a horse. What distinguishes these sounds is the tonality (indicating by what is over the “a“ in that case as you might have guessed). Five tones are used in Chinese. The fifth one is neutral and doesn‘t have any indicator of pinyin words. The first tone is a constant high tone (mā), the second is trending upwards (má), the third is going down then up (mǎ) and the fourth is going downwards (mà).

Some exceptions do exist. For example, when two third tones follow each other, the second will be pronounced as a second tone. The number “one“ (yi) also shifts tone depending on the tonality following it. A remarkably fresh approach to tonality to Westerners. Although, this explains why it might be difficult for us to process Chinese sentences. We need to internalize the importance of tone, something we are not used to noticing.

What question?

Another thing that piqued my interest was how questions are structured compared to English. In Mandarin, many question particles - that is, characters put at the end of a sentence to indicate it is a question - exist. Instead of just having “?“ at the end of your question, these particles have the benefit of pinpointing the exact intent of the question. 呢 (ne) hints that we already know the context and want further information. For instance, this is the particle you would use to ask “Fine, and you?“ after someone asked you how you‘re doing. 吧 (ba) is a way to ask a question seeking confirmation. It can be broadly seen as equivalent to adding “right?“ at the end of a question. A final example, 吗 (ma) indicates that a yes-no answer is expected. Just love how this opens up meaning nuances in the written text itself. It reminds me in a way of the numerous and precise verb tenses in Latin that encompass way more specific meanings than in English.

To be or not to be

Negation in Mandarin is also interesting to me. First, the words “yes“ and “no“ don‘t exist in Mandarin. Instead, to say yes, you would repeat the verb. For an English example, you would pretty much answer “I like coffee“ if someone asked you “Do you like coffee?“. Don‘t get me wrong, words exist to express affirmation (for example 对 - duì or "correct"), just not “yes“ itself. How do you say “no“ then? You would use the negation particle 不 (bù) before the verb itself. For example, 不 followed by 是 (shì - to be) means “not to be“. The only exception to this is the negation of the verb 有 (yǒu - to have), which is negated with 沒 (méi). In that way, 沒有 (méiyǒu) means ‘not to have“.

Just need to classify it first

Finally, I want to point out how, in Mandarin Chinese, you need to classify things before counting them. Indeed, those classifier characters cannot be used by themselves and are a syntactic clue defining the nature of what we are counting. Depending on their properties, these classifiers can be used with different words to define shape, size, quantity, type, etc. Most nouns have their specific classifiers that should be used (even though general classifiers exist). For example, “一本书“ (yī běn shū) means “one book“. Běn is the classifier used for books, magazines and other printed media. For its part, “two cars“ would be “二辆车“ (èr liàng chē). Liàng is the classifier for motorized vehicles. From what I have seen, 个 (ge) is the most common general classifier and can be used in most contexts.

Some studying to do

As you can see, delving into Mandarin Chinese is not just about learning syntax, acquiring new words and adapting common catchphrases. To me, learning any language is about being open to a rich cultural landscape. Such a rewarding mental exercise can be an excellent leverage to stimulate and inspire. What‘s more, being able to communicate with more people from our past and present can only help to find your next obsession or journey. These are far from the only things that I find fascinating about Mandarin Chinese currently. For example, I love how some adjectives are used as verbs interchangeably. Still, I hope the oddities I did point out will encourage you to delve deeper. Whether it's for Mandarin Chinese or any other language, I am sure you will have plenty of fun with it.

That‘s all for today. See you tomorrow (or, if you prefer, míngtiān jiàn).