I'm so lucky to have intelligent and fun coworkers. Another bonus is that two of them, Yung-Chen and Wei, speak Chinese, and they allow me to practice what I've learned in Chinese Mandarin language class on them. Sometimes I get blank stares after talking in Chinese to them, sometimes I am provided with corrections, and always there are smiles.
In class last night, when I was talking in Chinese about a young man in the room, instead of saying, "He eats sandwiches" I said, "He is a sandwich." Oh sure, the teacher and class roared with laughter. And I now am keen to the difference between the pronunciation and tone for the verb "eat" (chi1) and "to be" (shi4). What's in parantheses is a romanization of Chinese; it's called pinyin, and the numbers represent one of five tones.
To hear the difference between chi1 (eat) and shi4 (to be), click on the link below, type one of the words above -including the number which represents the tone- into the Search box, select Pinyin from the next drop-down box, and click on Look It Up! You'll be presented with a table that will link you to hearing the word pronounced.
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