Chinese: explained basics

Explore Mandarin Chinese through 10 basic characteristics, from SVO word order and monosyllabic roots to characters, tones, measure words, lack of inflection, no gender or tense, and context-driven meaning.

Explore Hanyu Pinyin, the official romanized system for standard Mandarin in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore. Learn its history, limitations, and practice with a 412-syllable chart.

Explore how Mandarin tones shape meaning as the lecture introduces four main tones and a neutral tone, with examples, tone diagrams, and notes on tone changes.

Explore the history and origins of Chinese characters, from oracle bones to the legend of the Yellow Emperor, and learn about traditional and simplified forms and the art of calligraphy.

Explore the types of Chinese characters—pictographs, simple/ideographic symbols, compound conceptual characters, and semantic-phonetic compounds—along with stroke structure, meanings, and cross-dialect usage.

Explore Chinese word order, focusing on subject–verb–object with limited flexibility. Learn to place time and location before the verb, guided by who/what/where/when questions.

Explore how Chinese characters map to syllables, noting that many words are monosyllabic and one character equals one syllable. Describe how modern Chinese forms polysyllabic words through compounds and suffixes.

Explore how Chinese is isolating and analytic, with little morphological markers and no inflections, where a single character can function as a noun, verb, or adjective.

Explore gender noun categories in Mandarin, tracing how pronouns shift from feminine and neuter forms to a gender-neutral spoken system, with written distinctions visible in characters.

Discover how Chinese conveys tense without verb conjugation, using time indicators and particles to express past, present, and future.

Explore how Chinese uses measure words to count nouns, following the number plus measure word plus noun structure, with the simple 'ge' counting word and around 150 measure words.

Explain that Chinese has no distinct singular or plural noun forms, and show using numbers plus measure words to express quantity, with examples of books and collective nouns.

Learn basic Chinese greetings, including ni hao, the differences between formal and real-life greetings, and the cultural context of have you eaten yet as a common greeting.

Learn to say good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night in Chinese, with character breakdowns and practical greetings, including ni hao as hello.

Learn basic Chinese greetings by time of day, greet others by name or by profession, and master two easy goodbyes: bye bye and Xijin.

Learn the basic Chinese verb 是 (shì) to link nouns and pronouns and form simple to-be sentences, with no conjugation, and note that Chinese has no yes or no words.

Learn basic declarative Chinese sentences linking nouns to adjectives with 很. Practice forming sentences like I am tall or I am tired using the noun + 很 + adjective structure.

Learn how the Chinese question particle ma turns statements into yes-no questions, forming binary questions in Mandarin. See ni hao ma and other examples, and practice constructing questions from statements.

Learn how to negate in Chinese with 不 (bull) for adjectives and verbs, including 'I'm not hungry,' and note the exception: the verb have is negated with may.

Learn basic tone combinations and the rules of tone changes in Chinese, including how the first tone shifts to second before a fourth tone, with practical examples like ni hao.

Review the most basic Chinese sentence patterns, including subject-verb-object structure, tones, and grammar through quizzes, dialogues, and practice exercises to reinforce Mandarin fundamentals.

Explore the glossary of Chinese basics, listing words used from the beginning and organized by episode in this final part of the five-part course.

Explore glossary part II in the Chinese: explained basics course, featuring a string of terms and names such as flashback, clock, and Joe Biden for practice.

Explore glossary concepts through a workplace flashback, focusing on on the job terms, clock out phrases, and diverse names that illustrate everyday speech in a Chinese basics context.

Explore the basics of the Chinese glossary in part iv, featuring a flashback-style review of numbers, names, and sample phrases.

Explore more than 150 Chinese characters and words, learn grammar structures and patterns, and practice over 20 sentences across 29 course parts, covering Chinese grammar, culture, and history.