Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
David: Welcome to chineseclass101. I am David.
Echo: 大家好,我是Echo.(Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì Echo.)
David: And Echo, we are here with lesson #37 in our first elementary series.
Echo: 第三十七课。(Dì sānshíqī kè.)
David: And you know what we’ve got today?
Echo: We got a interesting lesson, as usual.
David: We have a cautionary tale of what happens when you come to China and leave your house in the hands of
Echo: Some friends.
David: Some of your friends. The dialogue we’ve got for you is casual. Before we get to it, we want to remind you. In the elementary series, we are getting into more and more difficult content and one of the easiest ways to make sure you remember this stuff, sign up, get the premium PDFs, and then the day after you listen to a lesson, review it for 5 minutes.
Echo: 对。(Duì.)
David: This is really going to help the stuff stick and it’s going to get you to fluency much, much faster.
Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.)
David: Now, we are going to play the dialogue for you one time fast, one time slow and then line by line with a translation.
DIALOGUE
A:谢谢你帮我照顾家。(Xièxie nǐ bāng wǒ zhàogu jiā.)
B:没事,应该的。(Méishì, yīnggāi de.)
A:家里一切都好吧?(Jiālǐ yīqiè dōuhǎo ba?)
B:挺好的,只是,花都死了。(Tǐng hǎo de, zhǐshì, huā dōu sǐ le.)
A:什么?(Shénme?)
B:实在不好意思,我忘了浇水。(Shízài bùhǎoyìsi, wǒ wàng le jiāoshuǐ.)
A:没事。猫呢?(Méishìr. Māo ne?)
B:啊?你有猫?(A? Nǐ yǒu māo?)
Once more slowly.
A:谢谢你帮我照顾家。(Xièxie nǐ bāng wǒ zhàogu jiā.)
B:没事,应该的。(Méishì, yīnggāi de.)
A:家里一切都好吧?(Jiālǐ yīqiè dōuhǎo ba?)
B:挺好的,只是,花都死了。(Tǐng hǎo de, zhǐshì, huā dōu sǐ le.)
A:什么?(Shénme?)
B:实在不好意思,我忘了浇水。(Shízài bùhǎoyìsi, wǒ wàng le jiāoshuǐ.)
A:没事。猫呢?(Méishìr. Māo ne?)
B:啊?你有猫?(A? Nǐ yǒu māo?)
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Echo: 谢谢你帮我照顾家。(Xièxie nǐ bāng wǒ zhàogu jiā.)
David: Thank you for helping me look after the home.
Echo: 没事,应该的。(Méishì, yīnggāi de.)
David: No problem. Anyone should have done it.
Echo: 家里一切都好吧?(Jiālǐ yīqiè dōuhǎo ba?)
David: Is everything at home okay.
Echo: 挺好的,只是,花都死了。(Tǐng hǎo de, zhǐshì, huā dōu sǐ le.)
David: Really good. It’s just that the plants all died.
Echo: 什么?(Shénme?)
David: What!
Echo: 实在不好意思,我忘了浇水。(Shízài bùhǎoyìsi, wǒ wàng le jiāoshuǐ.)
David: I am really sorry. I forgot to water them.
Echo: 没事。猫呢?(Méishìr. Māo ne?)
David: No problem. What about the cat?
Echo: 啊?你有猫?(A? Nǐ yǒu māo?)
David: Ah you’ve got a cat? Okay we are back. We’ve got some good vocab for you. It’s all about taking care of the house as well as some interesting adverbs. Now that we’ve tempted you with grammar, let’s drag you into the vocab section. And now the vocab section.
VOCAB LIST
Echo: 照顾 (zhàogu)
David: To take care of
Echo: 植物 (zhíwù)
David: Plants.
Echo: 宠物 (chǒngwù)
David: Pets.
Echo: 家务 (jiāwù)
David: Housework.
Echo: 应该的 (yīnggāi de)
David: It should be that way.
Echo: 一切 (yīqiè)
David: Everything.
Echo: 只是 (zhǐshì)
David: It’s just that.
Echo: 实在 (shízài)
David: Actually.
Echo: 浇水 (jiāoshuǐ)
David: To water plants.
Echo: 浇水 (jiāoshuǐ)
David: The first word that leaps out of me actually is this last one.
Echo: 浇水 (jiāoshuǐ)
David: Yeah.
Echo: Why?
David: Because in English, we’d say to water plants.
Echo: Oh!
David: In Chinese though, we leave off the word for plants.
Echo: 对。(Duì.)
David: Right?
Echo: Uhoo…
David: And in the dialogue actually, they didn’t even say plants. What did they say?
Echo:花儿。(Huā er.)
David: Right. They said flowers. So what’s the..
Echo: 这是很口语的 (Zhè shì hěn kǒuyǔ de) It’s very colloquial.
David: So we’ve got two words then. We’ve got the formal word for plants.
Echo: 植物。(Zhíwù.)
David: And then we’ve got the word for flowers.
Echo: 花儿。(Huā er.)
David: And everyone says flowers.
Echo: 对。(Duì.)
David: Right?
Echo: Because of the spoken language.
David: So is there any circumstance where you’d say plants?
Echo: You can say plants too. We can say 植物 (Zhíwù) but it sounds a little bit formal.
David: Okay let’s start our vocab list with the word to look after.
VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE
Echo: 照顾 (Zhàogù)
David: Now there are lots of things that you might be asked to look after. You are going to look after the house.
Echo: 照顾家。(Zhàogù jiā.)
David: You could look after the pets.
Echo: 照顾宠物。(Zhàogù chǒngwù.)
David: Like look after the dog.
Echo: 照顾狗。(Zhàogù gǒu.)
David: Look after the cat.
Echo: 照顾猫。(Zhàogù māo.)
David: Look after the snake.
Echo: Ah I don’t want to take that job.
David: Right. You can be asked to look after the plants.
Echo: 照顾植物。(Zhàogù zhíwù.)
David: Or as Chinese people like to say
Echo: 照顾花儿。(Zhàogù huā er.)
David: Yeah. There is not that much of a distinction between flowers and other kind of house plants.
Echo: Uhoo…
David: We’ve also got – you can look after the kids.
Echo: 照顾孩子。照顾小孩。 (Zhàogù háizi. Zhàogù xiǎohái.)
David: In addition to this, you’ve got housework.
Echo: 家务。(Jiāwù.)
David: Now there are lots of different kinds of housework. We’ve already touched on some of them in earlier lessons like doing the laundry.
Echo: 洗衣服。(Xǐ yīfú.)
David: What other kinds of housework do we have Echo?
Echo: 倒垃圾。(Dào lèsè.)
David: Taking out the garbage, fourth tone, first tone, first tone.
Echo: 倒垃圾。(Dào lèsè.)
David: He hates taking out the garbage.
Echo: 他讨厌倒垃圾。(Tā tǎoyàn dào lèsè.)
David: We’ve got an interesting word here. I think that’s useful to point out. It’s the word actually.
Echo: 实在。(Shízài.)
David: Right. This actually means, this means in fact. Can you give us an example sentence?
Echo: 我实在讨厌做家务。(Wǒ shízài tǎoyàn zuò jiāwù.)
David: In fact I hate doing housework. And I think the rest of our stuff is pretty easy. There is one phrase we should highlight here though.
Echo: 应该的。(Yīnggāi de.)
David: And this is tough to translate. Echo, it’s kind of like oh…
Echo: Yeah I should.
David: I should or anyone would have done it. It’s self-deprecatory. Like someone says thank you and you want to say, no, no, no it’s not a big deal. 应该的。(Yīnggāi de.)
Echo: 没事儿没事儿,应该的。(Méishì er méishì er, yīnggāi de.)
David: Yeah and it literally means…
Echo: It’s very useful.
David: Literally means, it’s something that I should have done. So you don’t need to thank me.
Echo: Right.
David: Okay. So let’s practice that again. Echo
Echo: 应该的。(Yīnggāi de.)
David: Awesome and with that, let’s move on to the grammar section. It’s grammar time. In our grammar section today, we are going to be focusing all on

Lesson focus

Echo: 了。(Le.)
David: Now a lot of people have trouble with this and the reason we are doing this is to clarify exactly what it means when you put this in different places in the sentence.
Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.)
David: Okay. So we are going to be focusing particularly on sentences that have a verb and then an object. In our dialogue, we heard this sentence.
Echo: 我照顾家。(Wǒ zhàogù jiā.)
David: Let’s simplify that to the sentence, he did housework.
Echo: 他做家务。(Tā zuò jiāwù.)
David: This is a really basic structure. We’ve got the subject and then the verb and then the object. He did housework.
Echo: 他做家务。(Tā zuò jiāwù.)
David: Okay. In previous podcasts, we’ve told you if you want to stick your sentence into the past tense, what do you do?
Echo: You put 了 (Le) after the verb.
David: Okay let’s hear that.
Echo: 他做了家务。(Tā zuòle jiāwù.)
David: Let’s have some other examples.
Echo: 我照顾宠物。(Wǒ zhàogù chǒngwù.)
David: I looked after the pet.
Echo: 我浇了水。(Wǒ jiāole shuǐ.)
David: I watered the plants. Let’s hear those three sentences one more time.
Echo: 他照顾了家务。我照顾了宠物。我浇了水。(Tā zhàogùle jiāwù. Wǒ zhàogùle chǒngwù. Wǒ jiāole shuǐ.)
David: Perfect. So we’ve put 了(Le) right after the verb to stick the sentence in the past tense.
Echo: Right.
David: Now we’ve also taught a second usage of 了(Le) before and that’s change of state.
Echo: 他做家务了。(Tā zuò jiāwùle.)
David: Right. We are going to put the 了(le) right at the end of the sentence.
Echo: 他做家务了。(Tā zuò jiāwùle.)
David: So that suggests a change of state. Before, the housework wasn’t done but now…
Echo: 他做家务了。(Tā zuò jiāwùle.)
David: He has done it. It’s changed. We have some other example sentences for you.
Echo: 我照顾宠物了。(Wǒ zhàogù chǒngwùle.)
David: I took care of the pets. Before, maybe no one was taking care of them.
Echo: 我浇水了。
David: I’ve watered the plants. They are watered now.
Echo: Finally…
David: Yeah. Let’s listen to those three sentences one more time.
Echo: 他做家务了。我照顾宠物了。我浇水了。(Tā zuò jiāwùle. Wǒ zhàogù chǒngwùle. Wǒ jiāo shuǐle.)
David: Right. That’s change of state. One of the things we hinted out at earlier podcasts but didn’t really touch on was what happens if you combine these two.
Echo: Yeah. There is double 了 (Le) there.
David: Is to force the 了(Le). What happens with the double 了(Le) Echo?
Echo: It’s both past tense and confirmation.
David: Okay. So we’ve got both the past tense and it’s actually kind of change of state but it adds a voice to the sentence. It adds, let’s hear some examples.
Echo: 他做了家务了。(Tā zuòle jiāwùle.)
David: He did the housework. It’s in past tense because we’ve got the 了(Le) after the verb but that extra 了(Le) at the end, what does it do?
Echo: It’s to confirm that he has already done it.
David: Yeah. The feeling here is like someone has been nagging him for days.
Echo: Yeah.
David: Has he done the housework yet? Has he done the housework yet?
Echo: Finally 他做了家务了(Tā zuòle jiāwùle) so stop nagging.
David: Yeah that’s the kind of emotion you are going to get in these sentences if you add the second 了(Le). Okay let’s give you the other examples.
Echo: 我照顾了宠物了。(Wǒ zhàogùle chǒngwùle.)
David: I finally took care of the pets.
Echo: 我浇了水了。(Wǒ jiāole shuǐle.)
David: I’ve watered the plants already.
Echo: Yeah exactly.
David: Okay. So to review, we have three kinds of sentences for these verbs and objects. The first is putting 了 (Le)after the verb.
Echo: 他做了家务。(Tā zuòle jiāwù.)
David: Puts it in the past tense. Second is putting 了 (Le) at the end of the sentence.
Echo: 他做家务了。(Tā zuò jiāwùle.)
David: Which suggests the change of state. And the third is the super combo.
Echo: 他做了家务了。(Tā zuò jiāwùle.)
David: Yes we have two 了 (Le) and its past tense and this kind of confirmation.
Echo: 好,今天我们就到这里吧。(Hǎo, jīntiān wǒmen jiù dào zhèlǐ ba.)

Outro

David: Right. That’s it for today but before we go Echo, you wanted to say something.
Echo: 给我们留言吧。(Gěi wǒmen liúyán ba.)
David: Yes.
Echo: Leave us comments.
David: If you haven’t come to site, come to the site, give us a visit, sign in and leave some comments. Let us know how we are doing and how we can improve.
Echo: 我最喜欢看大家的留言。(Wǒ zuì xǐhuān kàn dàjiā de liúyán.)
David: Yeah otherwise Echo gets angry. And with that, thanks for listening. I am David.
Echo: 我是 (Wǒ shì)Echo.
David: And we will see you next week.
Echo: 下次见。(Xià cì jiàn.)
David: Bye.

Grammar

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