Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

Start speaking Chinese in minutes and grasp the language, culture and customs in just minutes more with Chinese survival phrases, a completely new way to master the basics of Chinese. To get more Chinese lessons and for free, go to chineseclass101.com and sign up for your free lifetime account. Signing up takes less than a minute and you will find more great lessons just like this one. To get more free Chinese lessons, go to chineseclass101.com
Michael: All right today, we are going to introduce ways to say goodbye, things to say when you are leaving somebody when you are going home. The general all purpose parting expression for all occasions is 再见(zài jiàn). This is one of my favorite things in Chinese because 再见(zài jiàn) means again see. It means I will see you again. Every time somebody says goodbye in China, they usually say 再见(zài jiàn). So it’s like they are going to see you again. This is one of my favorite Chinese customs. So let’s break it down syllable by syllable and go a little bit more slowly. First 再见(zài jiàn), it is fourth tone and then fourth tone again. Both of these are falling tones. This is usually one of the easier to pronounce words in Chinese, 再见(zài jiàn). The one thing you need to be careful for is it’s not 见(jàn), it’s 见(jiàn), 再见(zài jiàn). All right guys, one more time, 再见(zài jiàn). Okay, let’s modify that 再见(zài jiàn) a little bit. If you want to say I will see you tomorrow, you can say 明天见(Míngtiān jiàn), 明天(Míng tiān) means tomorrow and like we said before 见(jiàn) means see. Oh so when you leave the office or when you leave school or when you’ve made plans to see a friend tomorrow, you just say 明天见(Míngtiān jiàn). All right, let’s do that slowly 明天见(Míngtiān jiàn), it’s second tone, then first tone, then fourth tone. So rising tone, flat tone, falling tone, 明天见(Míngtiān jiàn). So maybe if you run into your neighbors on the street, people you see every day, you can say 明天见(Míngtiān jiàn) right before you go home and go to bed. You can modify 再见(zài jiàn) any time phrase, next month, next week, Monday. You can say I will see you at 4 o’ clock 四点见( Sì diǎn jiàn). Now let’s just try to learn how to say goodnight. This is something you say before when you are going home, before you go to bed, you say 晚安(wǎn ān), this means late or night. 晚(wǎn) means late or night and 安(ān) means peaceful. So you say to somebody have a peaceful night 晚安(Wǎn ān), Little bit slower, 晚安(Wǎn ān). All right this is third tone and then first tone. The falling, rising tone and then the flat tone, 晚安(wǎn ān). Now remember guys though, you can use 再见(zài jiàn) at any time of the day when you are saying goodbye to anyone in any situation. When you are getting off the phone, you still say 再见(zài jiàn) even though you are not actually seeing them at that time. Though if you really want to sound like a real Chinese person, you just say I am hanging up now, 挂了(guà le).. 挂(guà) means to hang up and 了(le) is a particle that indicates that the situation after you hang up the phone is going to be different than the situation before you hung up the phone, 挂了(guà le). A lot of people when they are being really informal with their friends, they will just say 挂了(guà le) at the end of a phone call. It sounds impolite but in some ways being impolite in China is being friendly. 挂了(guà le), dial tone. All right, to close our today’s lesson, we’d like you to practice what we have just learned. I will provide you with the English equivalent of a phrase and you are responsible for shouting it out loud. You will have a few seconds before I give you the answer. So 加油(Jiā yóu)! Goodbye or see you later, 再见(Zài jiàn). Goodnight, 晚安(Wǎn ān). I will see you tomorrow, 明天见(Míngtiān jiàn). I am hanging up now, 挂了(Guà le).
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