Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Chinese Language Centre

Tomorrow morning I'm going to take my first on-line lesson with a tutor from the Ottawa Chinese Language Centre, using Skype. Mr Yin gave me a ten-minute trial run yesterday in which he taught me the difference between:
  1. mã = mother
  2. má = a feeling of numbness / flax (the plant)
  3. mǎ = horse
  4. mà = curse / swear / scold
  5. ma = a question particle
All these monosyllables are pronounced with a different intonation. Fascinating, isn't it? but I shall have to watch out. I've now paid in advance for 10 hours of instruction and am working on the notes for Lesson 1, Greetings: 第一课 问候

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