Lanterna Rally

Author: Zhou Xiaogeng

Publisher:

Published: 2017-06

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13: 9781548106751

If it is a real headache for you to grasp thousands of Chinese words, you will find this book to be a magic antidote. In an intuitive and fun way, this book reveals the unique method of how this ancient language built up its vocabulary palace, and what's more important, it helps you to understand the ways of thinking and reasons for creating such a vast language. Finally you will find that Chinese is not a difficult language, it is just different.Also, in order to make this book more helpful for solving some "realistic" language problems, such as, to help you to pass tests such as the HSK, BCT or final exam in your class, most of the example words in this book are selected from those words required by these various tests, or those most frequently used in everyday language. Contents and Briefings001 INVISIBLE TIES: ABOUT MANDARIN CHINESE...... To put it simply, Mandarin Chinese is a man-made language. It is based on the dialects near Beijing, and was then modified to be the standard official language. If you happen to visit the Jin Shan Ling Great Wall, you will find that the village beside it is proclaimed as the Origin of Mandarin Chinese......002 IMMORTAL BRICKS: CHINESE CHARACTERS......One amazing fact is that many characters that were created thousands years ago are still in use even though they have changed a lot in their appearance. People can find a distinct route of their evolution. The chart below shows the typical changes of the appearances during the past thousands of years........003 ORIGIN OF THE LEGEND: CHARACTERS AND WORDS...... For most of the languages, the "words" are the most basic elements that are used to construct whole language systems, and the words "mirror" all of the objects or concepts in our lives......004 INFINITE POSSIBILITIES: FEATURES OF VOCABULARY SYSTEM......If you happen to have both an English dictionary and a Chinese dictionary, compare them and you will find some interesting differences in them.......005 BEHIND THE CURTAIN: MECHANISM OF GENERATING VOCABULARY...... The method for words-creation in the Chinese language is easy to understand. Think about what you would do when you are trying to find something on an on-line shopping website: You will input several keywords and then will find a list suggested.......006 WAYS OF NATURE: THREE BASIC MEANING-GENERATING TYPES...... Don't think that we are going into some profound theories, on the contrary, everything that happens in the meaning-generating course is in accordance to common sense in our everyday life.......007 IT MAKES SENSE - THE PRINCIPLE OF "RATIONALITY COHERENCE"...... For many Mandarin Chinese learners, there might be some problems. Sometimes, they have enough reason to be sure that they are using some "good" words while those words actually are not acceptable in everyday language......008 THE HIDDEN CENTER: THE PRINCIPLE OF "CORE-IN-END"...... If you insist on raising a question as to "Why the core word should be put at the end?" I can only say that it might be something related to the popular habits of Chinese people. They like saving money, and they want to leave the best part at the end......009 STAGES OF GROWTH: THE PRINCIPLE OF "ONE-OFF FUNCTIONING"...... Maybe a famous chemical experiment can help you to understand this process better. Oxygen burns with hydrogen, and then the reaction results in a new element; water, which has its own features and usages.......010 BLURRY BORDERLINES: BASIC WORDS, COMPLEX WORDS, AND PHRASES......To create words for objects or concepts with more specific, or unique features, a popular way is to make combinations by using the basic words, and it happens in almost all the languages. The words created in this way are "Complex Words".......