Language - Mastering Mandarin
- Chinese keyboard, by flickr user absentmindedprof, used under a creative commons 2.0 licence
For those journalists travelling to China to cover the Olympics who are not already fluent in Chinese, we hope these links will put you well on your way to being a master of Mandarin.
We have also put together a selection of videos from around the web to help along the way - click here to take a look.
To get you started, here are a few phrases and words translated into pinyin Mandarin.
- Hello - "ni hao"
- Goodbye - "zai jian"
- Thank you - "xie xie"
- Sorry - "dui bu qi"
- Yes - "dui"
- No - "bu shi" / "bu dui"
- Journalist - "ji zhe"
- Good - "hao"
- Bad - "bu hao"
- How are you? - "Ni hao ma?"
- Where can I find...? - "Wo gai zai na li zhao dao .....?"
- National Aquatics Center (Water Cube) - "Shui li fang"
- National Stadium (Bird's Nest) - "Niao Chao"
- Great Hall of the People - "Renmin Dahuitang"
- Forbidden City (also known as Gugong) - "zi jin cheng"
- Metro - "De tie"
- Bus - "gong che"
- Numbers from one to ten - yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba, jiu, shi
ChinesePod Olympics lessons
ChinesePod has set up a comprehensive language site directed at visitors to Beijing. The site looks beyond the standard introductions to Chinese, and with the help of videos, podcasts, pictures and more, newcomers from Beijing will be able to learn how to not only find the event they are watching, but how to say it in Chinese and how to cheer for the athletes like a local.
Chinese-Tools.com
Comprehensive Chinese language site, available in nine different language versions for Chinese learners. The site features an online dictionary, a guide to writing Western names in Chinese, a forum, as well as a section dedicated to the Beijing Olympics.
Beijing 2008 Language Corner
The "Learn Foreign Languages with Fuwa" channel on the Beijing 2008 official website has been designed to provide tools for users to acquire basic conversation skills in Putonghua, English, and French. The site is thus targetted not only at foreign visitors to Beijing, but also at Beijingers who might find it useful to know some English or French during the course of the Beijing Games.
en.beijing2008.cn/languagecorner/
