Two Tigers: A Mandarin Chinese Children's Song

Two Tigers is a Chinese children's song about two tigers who are running fast. One of them is running without ears and the other one without a tail. How strange!

Practice saying the words with their correct tones before singing. Singing tends to hide the tonal differences of words, so make sure you know the proper tones for the words first. Singing is a great way of learning new words and getting to know the language in a fun way, but remember that you can't pronounce words like they are sung because then the tones will come out incorrect most of the time.

Notes

Children's songs are a great way to practice Chinese and even learn new vocabulary words for beginner-level Mandarin speakers. What lessons can Two Tigers offer?

Let's look at the phrase, 兩隻老虎 (traditional) / 两只老虎 (simplified) ( liǎng zhī lǎohǔ).

兩 / 两 (liǎng) means "two". There are two ways to say "two" in Mandarin Chinese: 二 (èr) and 兩 / 两 liǎng. Liǎng is always used with measure words, but èr does not usually take a measure word.

隻 / 只 (zhī) is a measure word for tigers, birds and some other animals.

Now let's look at the phrase, 跑得快 (pǎo dé kuài).

得 (dé) has many roles in Chinese grammar. In this case, it is adverbial. Therefore, 得 links 跑 (pǎo), which means to run, and 快 (kuài), which means fast.