Learn to Speak Basic Chinese
Each province, each city and even each village speaks their own dialect. There are hundreds of Chinese dialects in China so much so that each dialect speaker is not likely to understand another dialect speaker from another village or city. Fortunately, Mandarin, the official dialect, is understood by all dialect speakers.
Let’s learn a few useful basic and common Mandarin words and phrases that will help you break barriers with your Chinese friends.
How are You? -Ni Hao Ma
Also commonly shorten to Ni Hao.
This is likely to be the first Mandarin phrase that you will ever learn. Useful as a greeting or a ice-breaker. Suitable for use with all ages and professions.
Thank You -Xie Xie.
Another polite term that is easy to remember and use.
Very Good -Hen Hao.
This is useful when giving praise for a job or task well done. Also useful as a reply to anyone who says "Ni Hao Ma?’ to you.
Ni Hao Ma? (How are you?)
Hen Hao (Very Good)
No Good -Bu Hao.
This is useful when there is a need to comment on a shoddy or incomplete job or task. Can also be used as a reply to Ni Hao Ma? but may not be such a good reply.
Ni Hao Ma? (How are you?)
Bu Hao (No Good)
Very Expensive -Hen Gui.
When bargaining at the shops, this is the best term to use when driving a hard bargain.
Don’t want or No -Bu Yao.
This is the best term to use for touts - street hawkers who approach you at every tourist stop to ask you to buy things. Bu Yao….will stop them in their track.
This is beautiful -Hen Piao Liang.
Use this phrase to praise something that is nice or beautiful. May also be used when meeting a pretty girl too!
Taxi -De Shi.
De Shi is the correct term but you should be understood even if you use the English word for Taxi. They sound alike anyway.
Good Bye or See You Again -Zai Jian.
Well, I guess this is another term that will be easily understood even if the English word is used.
Excuse Me -Jie Guo.
There is always a crowd in touristy areas. There are so many Chinese who wants to see the same monuments too. Rather than push your way through the crowd, using the term Jie Guo may just open the path ahead for you!
Receipt -Fa Piao.
Always ask for the receipt or Fa Piao at the shops or from a taxi. This may be useful if you need to complain about a fraud or shoddy product. Also useful if you leave behind your bag or camera in the taxi.
I don’t want -Wo Bu Yao.
Useful when refusing a tout or when offered a drink too many at the Dinner table.
Author: Ken Cheong
Learn basic Chinese in short time (Shanghai city)
Do you feel happy when living in China? I think your answer will definitely be "Yes". But do you have any problems when living in China?
Learn Chinese - Podcast: Basic 001 - Basic Hello Greetings
We’ll present Mandarin Chinese vocabulary, phrases and proverbs from the bottom up in logical steps that will insure you’ll be able to use what you’ve learnt quickly.
English Service Project helps Chinese staff learn basic English
English Service Project helps Chinese staff learn basic English esp-21-small.jpg Almost every foreigner living in China has had a problem with the language barrier.
You may want to learn a foreign language as part of your studies, or as a hobby. There are increasing numbers of people learning different foreign languages such as French, Spanish, and Chinese. You could learn to speak Chinese at a local college class, however the easiest and best way to learn this language is to learn Chinese online. 
If you are not able to join a college or community class, then the best option is to choose an online course to learn Chinese. There are a good few websites that offer Chinese language courses, and from these sites you should get excellent resources to learn the language. These resources should include audio courses, video courses, and interactive learning experiences. 
Online Chinese language courses should include an interactive audio software. This will enable you to listen and learn Chinese vocabulary and accents. It will be easy to become fluent in this language if you use these interactive courses on a daily basis. Many online lessons are designed by leading Chinese teacher’s.
Learning to speak Mandarin online can be a rough process. On the contrary, it is very important. In fact, Mandarin is the main language in China, and about 1/5 of the worlds population speaks Mandarin. Whether you want to learn for fun, for your business, or for an upcoming vacation, it is important that you learn. That is why I am here. I am going to help you set up a plan so that you can learn Mandarin online easily.
The way that you can make sure you are on track is by taking a quiz at the end of each week. Have your wife, or son, or even yourself make up a quiz that covers EVERYTHING that you learned from that week. Based on the quiz results, you will know what information you have mastered, and what you need to look over again.
The Chinese language is a complicated communication system that has numerous written characters as well as a number of different dialects. If you are interested in learning how to speak Mandarin, you will first need to understand the basics of this Chinese dialect. 
The mandarin language utilizes the Pinyin alphabet, which is Latin based and uses four different tones. There are many Web sites that allow you to hear these tones as you learn to speak Mandarin. The following are a few basic phrases that you can learn to help you to become acquainted with the Mandarin pronunciation.
These are just a few basic conversational phrases that you can use when you learn to speak Mandarin. There are a few helpful tips that you may want to keep in mind when using these phrases. You should always repeat them as this is the way the Chinese conduct themselves during a conversation. You should smile as this is part of the Chinese etiquette system and avoid shrugging, as this has no meaning in the Chinese culture.
The Pinyin system is an alphabet that may help you to learn how to speak Chinese. This writing system is Latin based and was developed in the 1950 to replace the Wade-Giles system, which did not represent the sounds very accurately. The government has begun using this method in educational programs so that the natives can learn to write in Chinese using this form of alphabet. The Pinyin system is based on the Putonghua dialect, using this dialect’s sounds to orally represent Chinese written characters.
1. Price- If you were to take a local class, you may end up spending over ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. That is your hard-earned money quickly being wasted for a mediocre class. With an online program, you will get a much better program, and SAVE HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS.
3. Lifetime supply of education- Once your local class ends, your education goes with it. But, with an online course you will have the same information for the rest of your life. If you need to look over something, you can simply log onto your computer and re-read.
5. Teacher accents- In the first class that I attended, my teacher could barely even speak English. This created a huge set-back in my quest to learn to speak Mandarin Chinese. On the online course that I used, all of the video tutorials were in plain English, and everything was written for everyone to understand.
