Lessons 1-10

Mandarin Lesson 5 你在家吗? Are you at home?

商店 shāngdiàn store / 教室 jiāoshì classroom / 书店 shūdiàn Bookstore /
地铁 dìtiě Subway / 在 zài To be /

她 在 商店。She is at the store.
Tā zài shāngdiàn.
She being commerce-shop.

我 在 办公室。I am at the office.
Wǒ zài bàngōngshì.
I being manage-public-room.

你 在 家 吗? Are you at home?
Nǐ zài jiā ma?
You being home question?

杨 先生 不 在 办公室。Mr. Yang is not at the office.
Yáng xiānsheng bù zài bàngōngshì.
Yang first-born not being manage-public-room.

杨 先生 不 在 教室。Mr. Yang is not in the classroom.
Yáng xiānsheng bù zài jiāoshì.
Yang first-born not being study-room.

你 在 地铁 站 吗? Are you at the subway station?
Nǐ zài dìtiě zhàn ma?
You being ground-iron station question?

王 小姐 不 在 书店。Ms. Wang is not at the bookstore.
Wáng xiǎojie bù zài shūdiàn.
Wang little-big-sister not being book-shop.

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.