How are you? and 你好吗 (ni hao ma)?

"GREETING" is the first topic of every language.

These days i have heard lots of Chinese learners say "你好吗(ni hao ma)?" when they meet someone. "你好吗(ni hao ma)?" is translated directly from "How are you?" but absolutely different function in Chinese.If you have lived in China even ten years, you will never heard a native speaker say "你好吗(ni hao ma)?"

We do say 你好(ni hao), which is a pretty damn cool expression, it can be used at so many occasions, such as:

1. Greeting. In the morning, you meet your colleagea at the lobby, you can say "你好"

2. Ask for help. You got lost in Shanghai, you want to ask someone for direction, just use "你好", whatever who she/he is, girl, boy, man, woman, old, yong.

3. Ask for serveice. You finish your dinner at Peace Hotel, you want to ask for the bill, just say"你好", the waiter will come to you.

Do you have such a magic expression in your country? Tell us!

The Trinity of Mandarin learning ------ The student, the teacher and New Concept Mandarin

Time flies! Another brand-new year knocked our door open to say Goodbye to the year of 2006. If life is a piece of blank paper on which life experiences draw artistic pictures, one year’s time in New Concept Mandarin added another stroke to my life paper. Thanks to the students, the stroke is smooth, pleasing and meaningful.
New Concept Mandarin, as a bridge between students and teachers, has always been a great platform for students from different nations, who accordingly become each excellent “performer” on the stage. With the help of each teacher or “director”, the “performers” have been making progress and interpreting the art of language in different ways. It is also due to the trust and care that “performers” give to the platform, New Concept Mandarin has come to another prosperous era.
As one of the “directors”, it is so hard for me to hide the joy of gratification, which undoubtedly comes from students’ efforts and progress. Take three of my students for example. Brian Bone, Giuliano Raponi and Jenny Seaman have finished their Survival I and II courses in the last four months and just started the third level learning not long before. Just after less than half a year’s learning, Giuliano is able to have small talks with natives around, like shop keepers, his Aiyi, who were the people he was struggling to deal with when he just got here. Jenny is a successful company owner. Before she started her Mandarin learning, every time she was having a meeting with her Chinese employees or clients, she was like, just as she said, someone who seemed to have nothing to do with the business. Now she gets more confident on these occasions as she starts to pick up the words and even the sentences from what people say. Brian also gets more of the feeling that he has become one part of the surroundings where he felt pretty much isolated when he just came to the city, for he has started the communication with local people in their language.
Everyday, students come to the office to spend two hours with the teacher, sharing their learning experiences, expressing profound interests in local cultural life and exchanging what they have heard and witnessed. At suchlike times, I usually prefer to be a listener, for it is such an enjoyment to hear the changes taking place in their lives in China, for which they have made so many efforts and tried so hard. And their efforts in learning the language finally pay off. Meanwhile New Concept Mandarin and its staff also get rewarded at such moment when they have helped make those wonderful changes. It is all worth it!