Second Chinese Lesson

This week my principal gave me Chinese Lesson #2. Here we go!...

1) wǒ     I / me
我

2) wǒmén     we
我们

3) nǐ     you
你

4) nǐmén     you (plural) / you guys
你们

5) tā     he
他

6) tā     she
她
(Notice how he and she are pronounced the same -- tā -- yet have different characters)

7) tāmén     they
他们

Numbers:

0
líng
零

1
yī
一

2
er (or liăng depending on its usage)
二

3
sān
三

4
sì
四

5
wǔ
五

6
liù
六

7
qī
七

8
bā
八

9
jiǔ
九

10
shí
十

100
bǎi
百

1,000
qīan
千

10,000
wàn
万

Then she wrote down a random number -- 1,219 -- and had me say it in Mandarin... "yī qīan er bǎi yī shí jiǔ"

It's very logical the way numbers over 10 are formed. For the teens, you just take 10 and the number and put them together, like so: 11 is shí yī; 12 is shí er; 13 is shí sān...

And when you get above that, you just put the number, then ten, then the number: 21 is er shí yī; 22 is er shí er; 23 is er shí sān...

These are the two sites I use when reproducing the Chinese lessons my principal gives me:
Pinyin: http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/converter-pinyin-unicode.html
Chinese characters: http://translate.google.com

I also learned that each Chinese character is a one-syllable word in pinyin. So for example wǒmén is two syllables and therefore two characters 我们. I'm not sure if this is always the rule. By the way, this has been a very useful site in my beginning stages of learning Mandarin. I highly recommend watching the Pronunciation lessons and practicing often - http://www.seemile.com/renewal/package_list.jsp?pkg_no=27