Wednesday, November 21, 2012

我们(wǒmen)
咱们(zánmen)

The following is a list of the personal pronouns in 汉语. 

Subjective & Objective
我     我们
你/您     你们/您们
他/她/它     他们/她们/它们

Possessive
我的     我们的
你的/您的     你们的/您们的
他的/她的/它的     他们的/她们的/它们的

So far, there is nothing new. The above information can be found in just about any Chinese language textbook. Instead of simply going by the book, I'd like to deviate a little bit and touch upon another first-person plural pronoun 咱们 in comparison with 我们, which is more familiar to most Chinese learners. The difference between these two words is as follows. 

"我们" 只包括说话人, 是排除式用法, 排除听话人一方。 "咱们" 包括说话人和听话人双方, 是包括式用法。 

For example, 
我们去看电影。你呢?(我们 doesn't include 你.) 
我们去看电影吧。(我们 includes both 我/我们 and 你.) 
你饿了吧?咱们去吃饭吧。(咱们 includes both 我/我们 and 你.)




Wednesday, November 14, 2012

打算(dǎsùan)
想(xiǎng)

I've just made some sentences using 打算 (plan to, intend to) and 想 (want to), which I think are very useful. 

我打算去上海。
我打算买这个。
 
我想喝咖啡。
我想去中国。 

Actually, typing in Chinese is much harder that I thought. I can't even retrieve the right characters unless I know the 拼音 to go with them. 

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

I've opened this blog to chronicle all my (future) endeavors to acquire Chinese language skills. As of today, I'm still a total novice at this language. I initiated my Chinese language studies this past July, only 4 months ago. I'm well-aware that I have a long way to go before I reach native-like proficiency. My life, as a business owner, is always so hectic that I don't have much time to spare for my studies. However, I believe that I can still work on and improve my Chinese with what little time I have available.