Is there some tool that teachers use to help kids memorize the chinese alphabet? Is there some acronyme?
I’m talking about the “buh, puh, muh, fuh…” etc.
Just curious. If it’s going to come just from pure repetition, that’s going to end up being really tough…
Chinese alphabet? There isn’t such a thing, is there?
I learned the sounds with repetition. I don’t know why you would want to memorize them, though. My teachers said constantly that we should move from roman letters to characters as soon as possible.
There is no such thing as a “Chinese alphabet”.
Chinese is written in ideograms–i.e. each symbol represents a word, not a part of a word.
I’m using the term “alphabet” very loosely.
I’m aware of how the language works, as my girlfriend is Taiwanese.
There is a list of thirty five or so sounds each with a symbol (perhaps called a “radical”). These sounds are mixed and given one of four accents to make a word. For instance, the word “wo” (“I”) is a mixture of the sound “oo” (as in the word “loose”) and a long “o” (as in “go”). Both the “oo” and the “o” have their own radical.
If anyone knows the terminology, that would help. My girlfriend doesn’t know the english terminology because, well, she grew up speaking chinese.
You’re probably thinking zhuyin. Radicals are simple identifying parts of a composite character (e.g. in 部, 位, and 音, “立” is a radical).
OMG… I HATED that thing with a passion.
The bo, po, mo, fo bit was easy. The problem was when you finished the consonants and moved on the EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE VOWEL COMBINATION. It took me FOREVER to learn and I still kept forgetting bits afterwards.
If there is an easy way to learn it, my 7-year-old self would like to know please.
Oh, wait, I thought you were talking about pinyin. I have no idea how to read the system you’re talking about.
I would say, though, probably not. Think of it as learning a new alphabet. It’s not like you had an easy way to learn the English alphabet, is it? When each symbol represents a different sound… you just gotta learn them all.
Big Bird taught me a song that helped me remember.
As someone who learned Cantonese (albeit in an amateur “street” way), I just can’t see the point of this. There’s no phonetic writing system you’re learning, such as the Japanese Hiragana and Katakana that require syllabic comprehension and recognition. In my experience, you learn a word, you work out how to pronouce the syllable and the tone, and bada bing. Are you learning how to read or speak?
This isn’t a rhetorical question - what do you gain from learning such a series?
The “BoPoMoFo” system of phonetical symbols (zhuyin fuhao in pinyin, or something like that) predates pinyin. In contrast to pinyin, there was never any intent to use it as a replacement for writing the Chinese language – it was meant to improve the literacy rate and to standardize an accent at the same time.
I think the continued use of this system is primarily seen in Taiwan. I had to learn this stuff too as a boy attending weekly Chinese language classes; the teaching materials provided (which were all printed in Taiwan) had all characters with their phonetical markings on the right of each character as a sort of “training wheel” in learning how to read. More advanced texts would start only using them for new vocabulary. The local Taiwan-oriented Chinese newspaper also had a page or two aimed towards kids where they would have short articles, stories etc. where all the characters had the phonetics marked next to them.
As to what one gains from this… A few years back, there was a mercifully brief fad where I’d see kids wearing New Era baseball caps with the zhuyin symbols printed on it that most closely corresponded with the sound of the team’s initial letter, in English. (The team’s logo would be printed on the back of the cap, seen above the neck if one wore it frontwards instead of backwards.)
The first time I saw this was on some guy wearing a Yankees hat with the zhuyin for sounding out the English letter “Y”. What I found amusing was that (a) since no tonal markers were used, a first tone pronunciation was indicated, and (b) saying “Y” in the first tone in Mandarin means “bent” or “crooked”, which sums up how I feel about Yankee fans, especially those wearing faddish fan gear 
Oh no… I just remembered, someone gave my kids a dual language of children’s songs in English and Mandarin. They sing the ABC song in English, then do an extended riff of the ABC song in Chinese subbing in the BoPoMoFo phonetic sounds, which gets really weird when it gets to the vowel sounds. I usually run screaming from the room, which gets me disapproving looks from my wife, since I’m the one who’s supposed to be teaching them Chinese (and failing miserably at it).
The “zhuyin fuhao” system is certainly worth learning. Its a great way to begin learning the pronunciation of the characters and it continues to be useful as you learn new vocabulary.
I would stay away from the pinyin system. The “English” letters only confuse you because many Chinese sounds just can’t be made with them.
I’m still looking for an Alphabet Song to go with the Greek alphabet. Never could get that down pat.
Not if you pronounce them like English letters :dubious:
It’s true thought - pinyin is designed as a guide for standard Mandarin (where it works fairly well). Cantonese, though is not standard Mandarin and gitfiddle should not bother learning it.
robardin - I want to hear that song 
That’s it. That’s what I’m talking about. For instance, the keyboard shown on the wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuyin_Fuhao) is what my girlfriend uses to type.
If anyone has an suggestions of other things to do to learn chinese, I’m all ears. I already know a lot of words/phrases/etc. There aren’t many phrases, though, that I can formulate myself. I’m told I have very good pronunciation, at least.
But, I want to learn Chinese. Moreso, I want to get a scholarship to study Chinese in Taiwan (seeing as the government has recently said they want people to learn Chinese, Arabic, etc.), but a lot of people say you have to have a basic knowledge of chinese, which I may or may not already have. I can already understand a lot of Chinese.
Anyway, any pointers you can give me would be great…
I put Arabic lyrics to the familiar “Alphabet Song” for my children when they were small. It actually fits the melody much better than the Roman alphabet, because Arabic has 28 letters, which is divisible by four. The song thus has four phrases, each one with eight beats. Each phrase has eight beats: seven notes plus a rest. The Arabic alphabet fits “Twinkle Twinkle” perfectly. (except the first letter, alif, has 2 syllables so I make it a pair of sixteenth notes instead of an eighth.)
Alif ba’ ta’ tha’ jim ha’ kha’
Dal dhal ra’ zay sin shin sad
Dad ta’ za’ ‘ayn ghayn fa’ qaf
Kaf lam mim nun ha’ waw ya’…
A‘riful-huruf al-an
Fa-‘allimni al-Qur’an
Wouldn’t that be ‘down Con’?