As part of our homework for last weeks Mandarin lesson we were asked to prepare a brief introduction to ourselves using key words and phrases that we have covered so far. I thought I’d share mine with a wider audience.
晚上好。我叫Bill Glover。我在埃森哲工作。对不起我没有名片。但是我的手机的号码是：零七八一三八?八八?八。我出生在伦敦。我有一个弟弟和两个妹妹。我的弟弟和妹妹是双胞胎。我妈妈是爱尔兰人，我爸爸是英国人。我去过中国两次。我会说一点儿中文。
Translation follows:
wǎn shang hǎo. wǒ jiào Bill Glover. wǒ zài āisēn zhé gōng zuò. duì bu qǐ wǒ méi yǒu míng piàn dàn shì wǒ de shǒu jī de hào mǎ shì: líng qī bā yī sān bā ? bā bā ? bā. wǒ chū shēng zài lún dūn. wǒ yǒu yī ge dìdi hé liǎng ge mèimei. wǒ de dìdi hé mèimei shì shuāng bāo tāi. wǒ māma shì ài’ěrlán rén. wǒ bāba shì yīngguó rén. wǒ qù guò zhōngguó liǎng cì. wǒ huì shuō yī diǎnr zhōng wén.
Good evening, my name is Bill Glover. I work for [company name]. I’m sorry I don’t have a business card but my mobile number is [mobile number]. I was born in London. I have one brother and two sisters. My brother and sister are twins. My mother is Irish and my father is English. I have been to China twice before and can speak a little Chinese.
呵呵 嗯 中文写的不错
我可以教你中文 哈哈
Hi!
I run into your website when I am searching the Bill Gates!I am a borned Chinese guy and 25, I find you are so interesting in learning Chinese while I am so interested in Learning English, so, would you like make friends with me? Then we can learn each other.
By the way, your Chinese is good ,but it can be more perfect!
I am sincerely!
thank you !
你好， 我在网上搜索比尔盖茨的时候，不小心闯到你的个人网站来了！哈哈。我是个地地道道的中国人，你对中文的兴趣一定不亚于我对英文的热情，我想，如果我们交个朋友，一定可以互相学习到很多有用的知识。你觉得呢？
我在中国广州。
my MSN : manature.liu@hotmail.com
哥哥你用不用MSN?加我吧.
@Bill – Hey there. While my Chinese is far from spectacular (I’m Chinese-American born in California) if you’re looking to type jiayou (“try harder”) then you probably want to write 加油. I think you just said “your house has it.”
Well done.You’re going further than Alastair in Chinese study.;)
A great amount of English people want to learn Chinese now,maybe because China has a large market…I want to know why are you want to learn it,since it’s really difficult and complex(even for natives)~?To be honest,I was excited when I find this website~~ Hope you make a fantastic progress in your Chinese^^
I want to know why are you want to learn it,since it’s really difficult and complex(even for natives)~?To be honest,I was excited when I find this website~~ Hope you make a fantastic progress in your Chinese^^
[name removed] is a great company,and I guess you are doing technology services in it(not management consulting). Is that right?
And I’m curious about that if anyone tried ’00′-’99′ to replace the two ‘?’ in your mobile number in order to find you?
@刘罗军(manature) -
Many thanks for your encouragement. 我家有。
@盛荣祖 -
Thanks for the offer.
@Ernie – I did indeed mean to say 加油 rather than 家有. Thanks for spotting my mistake. This is what happens when you combine poor character recognition while relying too much on the character input method to guess the correct characters. I’ve made this mistake too many times recently.
It is taking a long time, and progress is slow, but it is one interesting journey. The internet really has changed the way we study and despite studying “alone” there is so much support and encouragement out there. There is no race as I have a lifetime to master my 2nd language.
P.S. I like what you have done with your blog. Art is a great way to express yourself, just a pity I’m hopeless at drawing.
You got up really early hey.I agree with what you said about the “There’s no race…”
Your sister and brother get into art?So cool! Shame I couldn’t access to their websites in the office.
I’m surprised you can’t access them as they are hosted on the same server as my website. I will have to look at why they might be blocked.
Yan, you can find my reasons for studying Chinese on a post I wrote entitled Top 10 Reasons for Studying Chinese. If you read through the comments, several other people have taken the time to share their reasons as well.
My congratulations to Ernie. I was thoroughly stumped by 我家有。你家有甚麼？？Excellent decipherment there!
You’re doing good work, Bill. One suggestion: I have never heard anyone say 晚上好. You could say 晚安, but a more common greeting in such a situation would be 大家好.
家有，家有….加油!!
Thanks for your encouragement, I am forever being astounded by just how much good will there is out there. People are always offering to help me progress my Mandarin.
As I understood it, 大家好 is a greeting that you would use if you wanted to greet several people at once. What would you say if you wanted to emphasis the time aspect, so good evening as opposed to good morning? I just took the phrase 早上好 and replaced it with 晚上好. Maybe I was guessing just a little too much.