The First Voice, said straight

The bones of an episode

Same Haskell spine as version A. The shape of a lesson is small: four kinds of phrase, each made of words, each word made of a written character, a sound, a tone, and a meaning. The code is here for the people who like to see the bones; you can skip it without losing the lesson.

-- the bones of every lesson
data Tone     = High | Rising | DipRise | Falling | Neutral

data Word     = Word
  { hanzi    :: String
  , pinyin   :: String
  , tones    :: [Tone]
  , meaning  :: String
  }

type Phrase   = [Word]

data Episode  = Episode
  { number   :: Int
  , theme    :: String
  , phrases  :: [Phrase]
  }

-- this lesson, same data, different narrator
firstVoice :: Episode
firstVoice = Episode 1 "the first voice"
  [ greet, askName, giveThanks, untilNext, smallNumbers ]

Hello

你 (nǐ) is you. 好 (hǎo) is good. 你好, "you good" — that's the everyday hello, and it works almost everywhere.

Pronunciation: nee-how. Both syllables ride a third tone — voice dips low, rises back up. There's a rule that when two third tones meet, the first one shifts to a rising tone, so what comes out of your mouth is closer to née how. You don't need to learn the rule. The rule will happen.

For respect or formality: 您好 (nín hǎo) — neen how. The character 您 has a small heart written underneath; it's 你 with 心 ("heart") added below. Sometimes Chinese characters carry their meaning the way a watermark does, and this one is a clean example — the heart is doing real semantic work.

If you only keep one phrase from this episode, keep this one. It opens almost every door.

Names

Asking: 你叫什么名字？ — nǐ jiào shénme míngzi? — nee jee-ow shun-muh ming-zuh — "you called what name?"

Answering: 我叫 ___ — wǒ jiào ___ — wo jee-ow ___ — "I am called ___."

Compact form, when introductions are quick: 我是 ___ — wǒ shì ___ — wo shir ___ — "I am ___."

The phrase that comes after introductions: 很高兴认识你 — hěn gāoxìng rènshi nǐ — hun gow-shing run-shir nee — "very pleased to meet you." Native speakers shorten it, rearrange it, and play with it constantly. You can too, eventually.

Thanks

谢谢 — xièxie — shyeh-shyeh. Two falling syllables, the second softer than the first. The pair has a small inward bow built into it — that's not a stretch, that's just how the syllables fall.

Reply: 不客气 — bù kèqi — boo kuh-chee — literally "don't be polite." Said as if to wave the thanks off. Don't mention it.

Goodbye

再见 — zàijiàn — dzye-jyen. The two characters: 再 means again, 见 means see. So the word for goodbye is, literally, "again, see." Even at parting, the language assumes return. I love that about it.

A softer one, used by hosts to guests who are leaving: 慢走 — màn zǒu — mahn dzoh — "walk slowly." It means I am not rushing you out. There's no clean English equivalent, which is the actual reason to learn it. Languages keep their best phrases in the corners that don't translate. 慢走 is one of those phrases.

Numbers 1–10

一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十

yī   èr   sān   sì   wǔ   liù   qī   bā   jiǔ   shí

ee   are   sahn   suh   woo   lyo   chee   bah   jyo   shir

These ten do most of the work of counting in Mandarin. Numbers above ten build out from them the same way English does from "one through ten" — eleven is "ten one," twelve is "ten two," twenty is "two ten," twenty-one is "two ten one," and so on. Which is why these earn their slot in the first episode. Memorize them as a rhythmic sequence; they have a natural cadence.