Language Facts

Useful Phrases

早晨!  

Good morning

謝謝!

Thank you

你可不可以幫助我?  

Can you help me ?

請問!  

Excuse me!

好高興認識你呀!

Nice to meet you!

我喜歡廣東話

I like Cantonese 

Do you know?

• Cantonese is the predominant Chinese language spoken in Hong Kong and Macau.
• Because of the use by non-Mandarin-speaking speakers overseas, Cantonese is the primary form of Chinese that Westerners come into contact with.
• Although Cantonese shares much vocabulary with Mandarin Chinese, the two languages are not mutually intelligible largely because of pronunciation and grammatical differences.
• Cantonese has the most developed literature of any form of Chinese after Classical Chinese and Mandarin. It is used primarily in Hong Kong and in overseas Chinese communities, so it is usually written with traditional Chinese characters.

Useful Phrases

Danke schön

Thanks very much

Bitte schön

You’re welcome

Guten Morgen

good morning (used before noon)

Einen schönen Tag noch!

Have a nice day!

Ich weiß nicht

I don’t know

Do you know?

German is primarily spoken in Germany (where it is the first language for more than 95% of the population), Austria (89%), Switzerland (65%), the majority of Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein – the latter princedom being the only state with German as only official and spoken language.

Standard German is the only official language in Liechtenstein; it shares official status in Germany (with Danish, Frisian, Romany and Sorbian as minority languages), in Austria (with Slovene, Croatian, and Hungarian as minority languages), Switzerland (with French, Italian and Romansh), Belgium (with Dutch (Flemish) and French) and Luxembourg (with French and Luxembourgish). It is used as an official regional language in Italy (South Tyrol), as well as in the cities of Sopron (Hungary), Krahule (Slovakia) and several cities in Romania. It is the official command language (with Italian) of the Vatican Swiss Guard.

German is one of the 23 official languages of the European Union. It is the language with the largest number of native speakers in the European Union, and is the second-most spoken language in Europe, just behind English and ahead of French.

Useful Phrases

Apa kabar?

How are you?

Selamat pagi

Good morning

Siapa nama anda?

What is your name?

Terima Kasih

Thank you

Maaf

Sorry

Permisi

Excuse me

Selamat datang

Welcome 

Do you know?

• The Indonesian name for the language is Bahasa Indonesia (literally “the language of Indonesia”).
• This term is often found in written or spoken English.  Indonesian language is sometimes referred to as “Bahasa” by English speakers, though this simply means “language” and thus does not technically specify the Indonesian language. 
• Indonesian language is a modified version of Malay
• Indonesian is an open language, influenced by other languages such as English and Arabic
• In terms of grammar, there are no conjugation/verb tenses
• Adjectives always follow nouns.

Useful Phrases

今日は

Konnichiwa  – Good afternoon

お元気ですか?

O genki desu ka  – How are you? 

はい、元気です。あな たは?

Hai, genki desu. anata wa?  – I’m fine, thanks. And you? 

どこからですか

Doko kara desu ka? – Where are you from? 

さようなら

Sayōnara  – Goodbye

Do you know?

• Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three main systems: kanji, hiragana and katakana.
• All Japanese vowels are pure – that is, there are no diphthongs, only monophthongs. 
• Japanese word order is classified as Subject – Object – Verb.
• Pronouns are correlated with gender of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken.
• Japanese often use titles of the person referred  to as the pronoun.
• Japanese language can express differing levels in social status.

Useful Phrases

안녕하세요 

Annyeonghaseyo  – Hello 

어떻게 지내세요? 

Eotteohke jinaeseyo?  – How are you? 

안녕하십니까 

Annyeong hashimnikka  – Good morning/afternoon/evening 

감사합니다 

Kamsahamnida – Thank you 

사랑해 

Sarang hae – I love you

Do you know?

• Korean is mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet promulgated in 1446 by Sejong the Great.
• “Hangul” consists of 14 consonants and 10 vowels that are written in blocks of 2 to 5 characters.
• Korean pronouns are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. 
• The Korean language has five major dialects in South Korea and one in North Korea
• Verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subjects, and the listeners.

Useful Phrases

你好吗?

Nǐ hǎo ma? – How are you? 

你叫什么名字？

Nǐ jiào shénme míngzi? – What is your name?  

谢谢!

Xièxie – Thank you!  

不客气!

Bú kèqì! – You’re welcome! 

再见!

Zàijiàn! – Goodbye!

Do you know?

• There are many hundreds  of Mandarin dialects. 
• Chinese sentence starts with a topic and following it by a comment.
• Chinese does not have tense. 
• Each syllable in isolation in Chinese (e.g. ma) has its tone, and the same syllables with different tones can mean different things. 
• In Chinese, people do not use “double” or “triple” when they talk about their phone number.  They just say each individual digit of the number, i.e. jiǔ-sān-èr-èr yāo-bā-bā-bā (9322 1888).

Useful Phrases

ผมเสียใจ

phohm siia jai – I’m sorry

สบายดีหรือ

sa baai dee reuu – How are you?

คุณอายเทุ ่าไร

khoon aa yoo thao rai – How old are you?

ยงไม ั ่รู้

yang mai ruu – I don’t know yet

พดภาษาไทยได ู ไหมคร ้ ับ

phuut phaa saa thai dai mai khrap – Can you speak Thai?

Do you know?

• Standard Thai is composed of several distinct registers, forms for different social contexts: Street
• Thai , Formal Thai, Rhetorical Thai, Religious Thai, Royal Thai.
• Thai is mutually intelligible with Lao, whereas the Isaan dialect is almost the same.
• Tone markers are placed above the consonant just before the vowel sound of the syllable.
• Thai word order is subject-verb-object, although the subject is often omitted
• Thai pronouns are selected according to the gender and relative status of speaker and audience.
• There is no morphological distinction between adverbs and adjectives in Thai.

Useful Phrases

Tên anh là gì?

What’s your name?

Chào ông. Tôi là Nam  

Hello, My name is Nam  

Cám ơn

Thank you

Hân hạnh gặp bà

Pleased to meet you

Ông có mệt không?

Are you tired?

Do you know?

• The Vietnamese writing system is an adapted version of the Latin alphabet, with additional diacritics for tones and certain letters.
• Vietnamese syntax conforms to Subject –Verb- Object word order
• Nouns in Vietnamese are marked by special classifiers
• Vietnamese is spoken in three dialects, corresponding to the three main regions of Vietnam: Northern (Hanoi), Central (Hue), and Southern (Saigon). 
• Vietnamese is a tone language; that is, the meaning of words and sentences is affected by the pitch with which they are spoken.
• Reduplication and compounding are common phenomena for Vietnamese vocabulary.