Putonghua (mandarin) -here are some must needs - China - General Tips & Advice Reviews

If you are going to be there longer term there are some great schools available to learn Mandarin (it’s real fun) but if you have limited time then here’s some things to help.

Four tones

1 high, like singing 2 rising 3 fall, and then up 4 low, drop down

Ni hao (nee3 how2) hi
Xie xie (shea2 shea) thanks
Bu yao (bu2 yow4) – if you are nice you can add xie xie don’t want it
Duo shao qian? (dwar1 show3 chen4) How much?

Hand signals work best but here are the numbers:
1= yi(e1) 2= er(ar4) 3= san(1) 4= si(4)
5= wu(3) 6= liu(lyo4) 7= qi(chee1) 8= ba(1)
9= niu(nyo3) 10= shi (shir2)

Don’t worry too much about the tones, just they will give you some leeway and if not they can always try out their English (;