12. Do you speak English ?

　

　

" A living language must keep pace with improvements in knowledge and with the multiplication of ideas. "- John Pickering

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12. Do you speak English ?

a note

　

" Nĭ shuō Yīngyǔ ma ? "

The simplest way to form a question in Chinese is to put a question word " ma " ( a question tag ) at the end of a sentence complete with a question mark. A more complicated but more frequently used question construction is:
[ verb ] + bu + [ verb ] ? e.g.
Nĭ shuō bu shuō Yīngyŭ ?
　

　

a tidbit

　

Chinese Language Scene
- A Babel Tower?

Dialect	Example	Pct/Pop
Northern	Pekingese	70%
Wu	Shanghainese	8%
Xiang	Changsha dial	5%
Gan	Jiangxi dialect	2%
Hakka	Guangdong Mei	4%
Minnan	Southern Fujian	3%
Minbei	Northern Fujian	1.2%
Yue	Cantonese	5%

　

　

the text

　

　

1. Nĭ shuō Yīngyŭ ma ?

2. Shuō Yīdiăr .

3. Tīng de dŏng Hànyŭ ma ?

4. Tīng de dŏng.

[ Do you speak English? ]

[ Speak a little. ]

[ Understand Chinese ?]

[ I do. ]

　

　

new words

　

　

1. Năguó

2. Rén

3. Zhōngguó Rén

4. cóng ... lái

5. Bĕijīng

[ noun ] which country

[ noun ] person

[ noun ] Chinese

[ prep. ] come from

[ noun ] Beijing

　

　

　

　