As you read my book, you will find that a lot of the words are written in a romanization of Chinese called Pinyin. This system was developed to make it easier to learn Chinese, as the characters are quite difficult by nature. In addition, Chinese is also a tonal language, which means that the tone of a spoken word also effects the meaning. For example, the phrase "May I ask a question?" sounds very similar to "May I have a kiss?" Let's try to avoid that embarrassment! There are four distinct tones, and a fifth tone that is neutral (similar to the tone we use when speaking English). The first tone is very high. The second tone starts low and rises. The third tone goes down and then comes back up. And the fourth tone is down. This can be very complicated to learn! Today, I will start you with a simple, yet extremely useful phrase.
你 好
nǐ hǎo
Both words are spoken with the third tone. This phrase is used as a greeting, the same as hello in English, though if we were to translate word for word, nǐ means you, and hǎo means good. So we are really saying "you good." I hope that you found this post interesting and I hope that I have inspired you to learn Chinese (even if just this one phrase). Thank you for reading! -Logan Murphy
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