Key phrases in Pinyin |
nǐ hǎo, nín hǎo, xièxie, bú xiè, zàijiàn |
Pronunciation (including tones) |
a, o, e, i, u, ümā, má, mǎ, mà, maj, z, x |
Culture |
Using nín hǎo when greeting someone who is senior (age or position) or who you meet for the first time.Chinese people will shake hands instead of hugging or kissing each other when greeting to each other. |
Language |
nǐ hǎo for informal greeting, nín hǎo for formal greetingPinyin is the most accepted system used for transcribing Mandarin Chinese into the Latin alphabet. In Mandarin Chinese, there are four tones (five if the neutral tone is included). Same syllables with different tones often have different meanings and with different character forms.Tone changes: two 3rd tone syllables together, the first syllable’s 3rd tone will be pronounced as 2nd tone. E.g. nǐ hǎo → ní hǎowhen bù (4th tone in isolation) is followed by another 4th tone syllable, it changes to the 2nd tone bú. E.g. bù xiè → bú xiè |