looking for a clue

[Utotype]

hey y'all im really interested in learning chinese but i have 0 knowledge about it, i just had two quick questions, do chinese characters have different meanings like japanese or do they only have one meaning all the time? and the second one was could someone tell me the four tones used in chinese? i know thats a lot but ill be terribly grateful thanks^99999999 au revoir ^__^

[Eng Wai]

Bon jout

Chinese characters can have multiple meanings, like english words.

The four tones used in Mandarin (one of the chinese languages) are:

1st: 44
2nd: 35
3rd: 312
4th: 51

If there are 8 tones in melody (do re mi fa so la ti do), 44 = fafa (continous), 35 = miso (continous) etc.

Hope this help. Now there are a lot of chinese everywhere. It is very easy just to grab any chinese and ask what are the 4 tones. They will be more than happy to teach you, especially you are a foreigner

I reply you not beacuse you are a foreginer, but because I am really bored (sorry.... )

Eng Wai

[captain_pocket]

hey y'all im really interested in learning chinese but i have 0 knowledge about it, i just had two quick questions, do chinese characters have different meanings like japanese or do they only have one meaning all the time? and the second one was could someone tell me the four tones used in chinese? i know thats a lot but ill be terribly grateful thanks^99999999 au revoir ^__^

1. do chinese characters have different meanings like japanese or do they only have one meaning all the time?

Yes, a chinese character can represent different meanings, but in most cases, all these are similar. In fact, i think the main difficulties in learning chinese is its homophone, not the meaning of characters.

2. and the second one was could someone tell me the four tones used in chinese?

Here you refer to putonghua, the official dialect adopted in the mainland china, taiwan and singapore.
There 're techncially 5 tones in putonghua. One of them is a light sound, and therefore we often say there's 4 tones in putonghua.

Here you can find the best background information about chinese language. You may find it useful:
http://www.zhongwen.com/x/faq.htm

de rien!