學習中文吧！学习中文吧！Learn Chinese!

[kanejam]

Spoiler:

I'm going to go to my house. 我要去在我家。

The 在 is ungrammatical here; prepositional phrases are never the object of a verb (in any case, I didn't cover prepositional phrases in the lesson, so I wouldn't make the answer to an exercise require one). Just "我要去我家" will suffice. (Technically, it can be grammatical, but for it to work, 在 would have to be the main verb, giving it a meaning of "I want to go and be at my home").

Whoopsie I know that verbs of motion can do some weird stuff though, is 我要在我家去 okay?

It is a cat. （它）是猫。

The 它 here isn't any more subject to pro-drop than any of the other pronouns. Since all of the exercises are assumed to be without any context other than what's given, the 它 is required (also, pro-drop is another thing that I haven't covered yet).

I don't think I've ever actually seen 它 used, it feels out of place (I know Chinese dislikes using pronouns for non-humans). I think 那个是猫 or similar would be better.

I've thrown in a few 了's in the exercise, pretty sure they're okay although I think the sentences would be fine without it.

They all look good to me, although I still have some difficulties with 了 myself.[/quote]

Also I forgot to say that it was a pretty big exercise, not too big but you might not want to go too much bigger.

[GrandPiano]

Spoiler:

I'm going to go to my house. 我要去在我家。

The 在 is ungrammatical here; prepositional phrases are never the object of a verb (in any case, I didn't cover prepositional phrases in the lesson, so I wouldn't make the answer to an exercise require one). Just "我要去我家" will suffice. (Technically, it can be grammatical, but for it to work, 在 would have to be the main verb, giving it a meaning of "I want to go and be at my home").

Whoopsie I know that verbs of motion can do some weird stuff though, is 我要在我家去 okay?

I think 我要在我家去 would mean that you want to go at your house - that is to say, the going is taking place at your house, rather than going towards your house.

It is a cat. （它）是猫。

The 它 here isn't any more subject to pro-drop than any of the other pronouns. Since all of the exercises are assumed to be without any context other than what's given, the 它 is required (also, pro-drop is another thing that I haven't covered yet).

I don't think I've ever actually seen 它 used, it feels out of place (I know Chinese dislikes using pronouns for non-humans). I think 那个是猫 or similar would be better.

You're probably right. It did feel a bit out of place for me as well, but I haven't really had much experience with real-life spoken Chinese, so I assumed that I just hadn't heard many situations in which 它 would be used yet. I suppose it would be worth reiterating that my Chinese proficiency is kind of intermediate-beginner, so there are quite a few things I could be wrong about.

Also I forgot to say that it was a pretty big exercise, not too big but you might not want to go too much bigger.

Duly noted.

[GrandPiano]

I've updated the lesson titles to reflect the content of the lessons. I'm a bit unsure about the Mandarin translations, so if someone notices that something is ungrammatical or unnecessary, please let me know! (working on the next lesson now, by the way)

[Davush]

Just a quick note about 什么/什麽/甚麼. As far as I'm aware, the mainland uses 什么, whereas Taiwan (and probably other traditional-character using communities) uses 什麽, but Hong Kong and Macau generally prefer 甚麼. I've noticed that Hong Kong especially prefers the more 'orthodox' variants. Other examples are (HK prefers the second variants) 只/祗, 才/纔, 為/爲, 床/牀, 借/藉/, 台/臺. I was taught by old-school HKers, so I grew up with the latter forms, but 纔 seems to be on its way out even in HK now.

It might be interesting to note that a feminine 你 （妳）exists, as well as a 它 only used for animals (牠). I find this usage a bit pedantic, but it does occur.

Regarding the use of 上 in 上聲, I think it originally meant a rising tone (上 meaning 'to go up, ascend'). 陰 and 陽 were originally used to describe the voicing of the onset, but obviously things have changed since Middle Chinese so the terminology is not quite as consistent when applying it to modern Mandarin.

[Znex]

Regarding the use of 上 in 上聲, I think it originally meant a rising tone (上 meaning 'to go up, ascend'). 陰 and 陽 were originally used to describe the voicing of the onset, but obviously things have changed since Middle Chinese so the terminology is not quite as consistent when applying it to modern Mandarin.

Aye, the Middle Chinese tones have all changed and split and combined in the different languages. It seems like HK Cantonese retains the rising tone, although splitting it into two separate rising tones, but in Beijing Mandarin it splits into the falling and contour tones.

[GrandPiano]

I've merged the pinyin lesson into the phonology lesson and significantly revised both, something I've been wanting to do for some time now. With that out of the way, I might start making more lessons soon. I'd like to start including audio recordings if I can figure out how, as well.