Lessons 1-10

Mandarin Lesson 25 我在小学教英文。I teach English at a primary school.

他 教 英文 吗? Does he teach English?
Tā jiāo Yīngwén ma?
He teaches English language question?

你的 朋友 教 英文 吗? Does your friend teach English?
Nǐde péngyou jiāo Yīngwén ma?
You-of friend teach English-language question?

我 在 小学 教 英文。 I teach English at a primary school.
Wǒ zài xiǎoxué jiāo Yīngwén.
I at small-study teach English-language.

杨 先生 教 数学。 Mr. Yang teaches math.
Yang xiānsheng jiāo shùxué.
Yang first-born teach number-study.

她 在 大学 教 数学。 She teaches math at a university.
Tā zài dàxué jiāo shùxué.
She at big-study teach math-study.

陈 先生 教 科学。 Mr. Chen teaches science.
Chén xiānsheng jiāo kēxué.
Chen first-born teach branch-of-study study.

周 小姐 想 教 历史。 Ms. Zhou would like to teach history.
Zhōu xiǎojie xiǎng jiāo lìshǐ.
Zhou little-big-sister like-wants teach calendar-history.

Lessons 11-20
Lessons 21-30
Lessons 31-40
Lessons 41-50
Lessons 51-60
Lessons 61-70
Lessons 71-80
Lessons 81-90
Lessons 91-100
Lessons 101-110
Lessons 111-120
Mandarin is a tone language--that is, different pitch patterns actually distinguish one word from another. Mandarin has no irregular verbs or noun plurals to learn, because words have only a single form. Because Mandarin is completely unrelated to any European language, you may think it might be difficult to develop your vocabulary. However, it really is not that difficult. Why? The reason is that the meanings of many words consisting of two or more characters can be inferred from the meanings of the characters or even the roots of individual characters. So, your vocabulary can rapidly expand when you have grasped the basic characters and character roots.