@kiri: i think 'ni hao' means 'how are you?'
sorry for annoyed you...

@shadowshed: 'ni hao' is actually 'hello'. 'How are you?' in Chinese is 'ni hao ma?'. It's similar, but different....
And about colours, I don't really know all, but here is some I know:
hong se- red
lu se- green
lan se- blue
bai se- white
hei se- black
huang se- yellow.


I have a list of them actually, but it's not with me right now. I'll add more when I can get a hold of it.

@shade: it's not annoy today ish bad mood ==
abdi mah hoyong na mah teu aya bebelajaran chinesse...

@adept: oh, right.
Thanks for the colours.
I wonder why almost everyone knows chinese!?
My bad for don't like it....

hmmmm
chi fan = eating =.=
wo = me
baba = dad
mama = mom
didi = lil bro
meimei= lil sis
jiejie= big sis
gege = big bro

@shadowshed: Chinese is the second most important language (or so my mom said) so me and my sis AdeptRogue are force-fed Chinese

Green: Lü se or qing se. The "u" in lü is the u with two dots on top and is read like a mix of "u" and "i" ["i" as in "in" not "I'm"].

Lao shu (or just "shu"- Mouse
Niu - cow/ox
Lao hu (or just hu) - tiger
tu - rabbit
long - dragon
she- snake
ma - horse
yang - goat
hou zi - monkey
gong ji - rooster
ji - chicken
gou - dog
zhu - pig
mao - cat
yü - fish
niao - bird
hu die - butterfly
qing wa - frog
ke dou - tadpole

@d_a: But most of the time, green is lu se. So far as I know, the only "green" that uses qing is from qing wa (green frog). And I know the 'u' in lu se has 2 dots on top, I'm just lazy to insert those dots. Most people don't write the dots nowadays, anyway.

I don't care if it's the second most important language or something, English is still far more superior. Dx

@rogue: Well, people who don't know needs to know. I mean the "u" with the dots and the "u" withOUT the dots are pronounced differently.

@Ivana: Which is why it's second. The first is English

*btw: Those two dots are called an umlaut (pronounced Oom-lout). It's just a fun word to say.

umlaut umlaut umlaut

@Ivana: My mom said that because we, d_a and I, are technically Chinese, and to her, speaking mandarin is a must

Oh I see. @_@ But do you speak Mandarin with your parents? I mean, if your mom can only speak Mandarin, then that's understandable...

No. That's why we have to take mandarin lessons to be able to speak mandarin, which sucks.

I'm Chinese but for my immediate family, I'm the only one who actually speak, read and write in fluent Mandarin. My parents were English educated and they only speak Cantonese and our clan/denomination's dialects - Hing Hwa (Dad's) and Hokkien (Mom's). I never really got to learn these dialects but I can understand a few simple words and phrases. My relatives are split between Mandarin and non-Mandarin educated one due to our choice of being educated in different language medium. (I went through all 3 types: English, Mandarin and Malay a.k.a Bahasa Malaysia)

Anyway...As for liking or disliking Mandarin or any Chinese language. It's a love/hate relationship ^^; Learning to speak it one thing, while learning to read and write are another headache. I'd spent countless of hours on my writing HW- this are one of the killer for me who was a kid then.

But as I get to know the history behind how Chinese characters came to be, I came to appreciate the beauty of language and its writing. Especially earlier this year when I watch a video of a Christian preacher preached using Chinese characters to unfold how each stroke of the characters had a meaning and were related to familiar bible stories. Which in my opinion was really awesome.

It's pointed that mandarin is that important,
and i know almost nothing.
It's really great for you all that can learn so mandarin that so hard.
I'm prefer english,
and why don't we learn another language besides mandarin, because of it's second after english, it's needed to know it to get a job,
meh

@Rogue
Imo, learning it would be a waste if it's not applied to your daily life. :/


@Elie
Bah, Chinese always must have the need to find meaning in everything. -_- Especially names, which gets quite annoying. Sometimes, I can't really determine if that person's a boy/girl by just hearing the name.

Oh so why didn't you go to a school that uses Chinese (Cantonese) as their medium language instead of Mandarin since your parents speaks Cantonese? o.o

Ok, in all of my 5 years learning Chinese (Cantonese)... No, I still cannot find it's 'hidden beauty'. Dx I'd very much go back to Philippines and study in an English school tyvm. But I won't deny, the only good thing of learning Cantonese is I can lmao at Steven Chow's movies. xD Srsly. They're awesome. x)

@Ivana: Thing is, she says it's a shame if we "let our roots disappear". Except that... nowadays a lot of people don't speak their ancestral language anyway, so... I don't see the point in that

@Ivana
If my memory doesn't fail me, I think you were from Hong Kong, weren't you?

The only "official" Chinese language that's used here in (Malaysia) official and educational matters is Mandarin. Same goes for Singapore if I'm not mistaken. Any other dialects are "just dialects" and can't be used in school. The teachers, well as far as school rules are...They disallow usage of dialects during school so we almost never speak Cantonese with our classmates even if both parties know the dialect. It even gets to a point where speaking the dialect to another might feel a bit strange since we spent the rest of our times speaking in Mandarin.

Same thing goes for the other languages. Well, it's probably just me, when I'm used to speaking one specific language to someone, I might find it a bit hard to converse in another language which we both may be equally fluent in, cause my brain seems to be set that one language as default when I speak to a certain person

As for names, I no longer want to guess a person's gender based on their names whatever the language of origin that is. Not to be gender bias or anything, some guys have names like girls and the other way around for girls. I don't know what's what anymore...Gender equality? xD

@Daeva
LOL sucks to be you then x)


@Elie
Yup. Well that sucks. x/ When I was studying in my English school, they also disallow students to use bisaya (Philippines dialect). But I find it easier to communicate with my classmates in Bisaya in private. xP

@d_a: I agree. Plenty of my schoolmates comes from Chinese ancestor/heritage, but none of them can actually speak Chinese. Well, some can- but very few