Mandarin, characters and how to learn here
Chinese Foundations · Lesson 1 of 11 · About 12 minutes
Preview version — Chinese review in progress.
Your mission: By the end of this lesson, you can say what Mandarin, Simplified characters and pinyin are, greet someone and thank them in Chinese, and you know how this course helps you remember.
Audio preview uses your device’s Chinese voice. It is not a recording.
New words
What you are learning
Mandarin is the standard spoken Chinese of mainland China and Taiwan, and the most widely spoken form of Chinese. In mainland China it is called 普通话 (Pǔtōnghuà, common speech). The Chinese language in general is 中文 (Zhōngwén).
Chinese is written in characters (汉字, Hànzì). A character is a written unit with a meaning and a sound, not a letter: there is no alphabet to spell words with.
Mainland China and Singapore write Simplified characters; Taiwan and Hong Kong write Traditional ones. This course teaches Simplified, the standard in mainland China. Many characters are identical in both; others lost strokes when they were simplified:
| Simplified | Traditional | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 谢 | 謝 | xiè | thank |
| 见 | 見 | jiàn | to see |
Pinyin writes the sound of Chinese in Latin letters with a mark for the tone: 你好 is nǐ hǎo. Pinyin helps you learn how a word sounds; the language itself is written in characters. In this course you can turn pinyin down as you improve.
How you learn with Mythic Mandarin
- Learn: a few new words and one idea at a time, with examples.
- Understand: short explanations of how Chinese works, including why a wrong answer is wrong.
- Practise: mixed exercises: meaning, characters, pinyin, listening, word order and typing.
- Use: a short dialogue, speaking practice and a small real-world mission.
- Review: the exercises you answer come back after a day, then after longer and longer gaps. That spacing is what turns a word you saw once into a word you know.
- Master: an item counts as mastered only after it has come back correctly in spaced reviews for about two months. Finishing a lesson is not the same as mastering it.
- Tap Normal or Slow next to Chinese to hear it. The audio is your device's Chinese voice, not a recording; if your device has no Chinese voice, the text is always there to read.
- Words link to the dictionary for meanings, examples and stroke order.
- Writing practice is optional: trace characters with stroke-order guidance whenever you like. It is a Mythic Mandarin method, not an HSK requirement.
Speak: listen, record, compare
Listen to each model, record yourself, then play both and compare: the rhythm, the tones, the vowels. No automatic score: your ear is the judge.
Recordings stay in this browser tab: nothing is uploaded, and they disappear when you leave the page unless you save a copy of a task recording to your device yourself. Your browser asks for the microphone first.
Recording is not available in this browser. Listen, then repeat aloud and compare by ear.
你好！
Nǐ hǎo!
Hello!
谢谢！
Xièxie!
Thank you!
再见！
Zàijiàn!
Goodbye!
Practice
Understanding
Which of these is pinyin?
中文 (Zhōngwén) is written in characters: it means the Chinese language.
Show the answer
Answer: B, nǐ hǎo.
nǐ hǎo is pinyin: Latin letters with tone marks that show how 你好 sounds. 中文 and 你好 are written in characters.
Meaning
What does 谢谢 mean?
Goodbye is 再见 (zàijiàn).
Show the answer
Answer: A, thank you.
谢谢 (xièxie) means thank you. Goodbye is 再见 and hello is 你好.
Listening
Listen. What does the speaker say?
Cannot listen? Read it instead
再见 zàijiàn
Show the answer
Answer: C, goodbye.
You heard 再见 (zàijiàn): goodbye.
Understanding
Which characters does this course teach?
Show the answer
Answer: B, Simplified characters.
Mythic Mandarin teaches Simplified characters, the standard in mainland China. Pinyin supports the sound, but the language is written in characters.
Your turn
Type 你好 in pinyin. Tone marks or tone numbers are welcome but not required here.
Show the answer
Answer: nǐ hǎo
你好 is nǐ hǎo: two third tones. Said together, the first one rises; you will learn why in the tones lesson.
Your mission: a first Chinese exchange
Use Chinese once today, even if it is only with yourself.
- Say 你好 to someone, or to the mirror.
- Thank someone with 谢谢 when they help you.
- End a conversation with 再见.
- Record yourself saying all three, play it back and compare it with the device voice.
Record your attempt (three and a half minutes at most) and listen back:
Review and finish
Can you do this? If a line feels shaky, go back to that part before you move on.
- I can explain the difference between characters and pinyin.
- I know why this course teaches Simplified characters.
- I can say 你好, 谢谢 and 再见.
- I know that finishing a lesson is not mastering it: reviews bring words back.
Review works best spaced out: answer these exercises again tomorrow, then after a few days. Your progress is saved in this browser.
Completing records that you finished the lesson. Mastery is separate: it grows as reviews bring the exercises back and you answer them correctly.