Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
DAVID: Welcome to ChineseClass101.com. I'm David.
Amber: 大家好,我是安伯。(Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì ān bó.)
DAVID: And we’re here today with Upper Beginner, Season 1, Lesson 12 - The case of the missing Chinese cellphone.
Amber: 对,手机在那呀?(Duì, shǒujī zài nà ya?)
DAVID: Right. Where is my cellphone? Amber, this one hits close to home today.
Amber: Ah ……. 噢!天啊!真的。(Ō! Tiān a! Zhēn de.)
DAVID: Yeah, Amber just lost her phone. Anyway, we’ve got a dialogue here which is casual Mandarin, as always, and it’s between two friends, one of whom, like Amber, can’t find their phone.
Amber: 手机没有了。(Shǒujī méiyǒule.)
DIALOGUE
A: 我的手机呢?(Wǒ de shǒujī ne?)
B: 你放哪儿了?(Nǐ fàng nǎr le?)
A: 我不记得了。(Wǒ bú jìde le.)
B: 那我给你打个电话吧。(Nà wǒ gěi nǐ dǎ gè diànhuà ba.)
A: 我关静音了。(Wǒ guān jìngyīn le.)
B: 应该有振动吧?(Yīnggāi yǒu zhèndòng ba?)
A: 哦,对。(O, duì.)
A: Where is my cellphone?
B: Where did you put it?
A: I don't remember.
B: Then I'll give you a telephone call.
A: I muted the sound.
B: It should have vibration, right?
A: Oh, right.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
DAVID: Right. So this lesson is if you lose your phone, you need to get someone to call your phone.
Amber: 没错,这个是最好的。(Méi cuò, zhège shì zuì hǎo de.)
DAVID: Yes. Yes, this lesson is from the heart today with Amber. Our vocabulary, of course, you can use it to make calls, you can use it to describe things that you’ve lost.
Amber: 对,没错。(Duì, méi cuò.)
DAVID: Let’s get to it.
VOCAB LIST
Amber: 手机。(shǒujī.)
DAVID: Cellphone.
Amber: 手 机, 手机, 丢。(shǒujī, shǒujī, diū.)
DAVID: To lose.
Amber: 丢, 丢, 放。(diū, diū, fàng.)
DAVID: To put.
Amber: 放, 放, 记得。(fàng, fàng, jìde.)
DAVID: To remember.
Amber: 记 得, 记得, 打电话。(jìde, jìde, dǎ diànhuà.)
DAVID: To make a telephone call.
Amber: 打 电 话, 打电话, 关。(dǎ diànhuà, dǎ diànhuà, guān.)
DAVID: To turn off.
Amber: 关, 关, 静音。(guān, guān, jìngyīn.)
DAVID: To mute the sound.
Amber: 静 音, 静音, 应该。(jìngyīn, jìngyīn, yīnggāi.)
DAVID: Should.
Amber: 应 该, 应该, 振动。(yīnggāi, yīnggāi, zhèndòng.)
DAVID: To vibrate.
Amber: 振 动, 振动。(zhèndòng, zhèndòng.)
VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE
DAVID: Now, let’s have a close look at some of these words. Our first is…
Amber: 手机。(shǒujī.)
DAVID: Cellphone.
Amber: 手机。(shǒujī.)
DAVID: In our last lesson, we had “treadmill”.
Amber: 跑步机。(Pǎobù jī.)
DAVID: And that was “a running machine”.
Amber: 对, 跑步机。(Duì, pǎobù jī.)
DAVID: This is “a hand machine”.
Amber: 手机, 手里面的。(Shǒujī, shǒu lǐmiàn de.)
DAVID: Yes, so it’s a machine that you put in your hand. And if you’re Amber this morning, you’ve been saying, “I lost my cellphone.”
Amber: 我丢了我的手机。(Wǒ diūle wǒ de shǒujī.)
DAVID: I lost my cellphone.
Amber: 我丢了我的手机。(Wǒ diūle wǒ de shǒujī.)
DAVID: Our next word is this word - "to lose”.
Amber: 丢。(diū.)
DAVID: To lose.
Amber: 丢。(diū.)
DAVID: First tone. What’s interesting about it is you can say “I lost my cellphone”, just like that previous example.
Amber: 唔,对,我丢了我的手机。(Wú, duì, wǒ diūle wǒ de shǒujī.)
DAVID: Or you can reverse that and you could say, “My cellphone’s lost.”
Amber: 我的手机丢了。(Wǒ de shǒujī diūle.)
DAVID: I lost my cellphone.
Amber: 我丢了我的手机。(Wǒ diūle wǒ de shǒujī.)
DAVID: My cellphone’s lost.
Amber: 我的手机丢了。(Wǒ de shǒujī diūle.)
DAVID: Right. So it can be active or it could be passive. Chinese people will generally use the passive construction, so will say, “My cellphone’s lost.”
Amber: 唔,我的手机丢了。(Wú, wǒ de shǒujī diūle.)
DAVID: Right. Or my laptop’s lost.
Amber: 我的笔记本丢了。(Wǒ de bǐjìběn diūle.)
DAVID: Right. It implies that it’s not someone’s fault.
Amber: 唔, 没错。(Wú, méi cuò.)
DAVID: Right, it just happened. It disappeared, it got 丢 (diū) on its own.
Amber: 对。(Duì.)
DAVID: So our next word is “to dial a telephone”.
Amber: 打电话。(Dǎ diànhuà.)
DAVID: To dial a telephone.
Amber: 打电话。(Dǎ diànhuà.)
DAVID: Right, the verb there is “to hit”.
Amber: 打。(Dǎ.)
DAVID: Okay, so that’s our vocab section for today. Now we’re going to move on to our grammar point.

Lesson focus

M2: It’s grammar time!
DAVID: Our grammar point today is all about prepositions.
Amber: 对,介词。(Duì, jiècí.)
DAVID: In previous lessons, we’ve taught you that prepositions come in front of verbs in Chinese.
Amber: 唔, 在动词的前面。(Wú, zài dòngcí de qiánmiàn.)
DAVID: Right. For instance, the preposition…
Amber: 在。(Zài.)
DAVID: Which means “at”.
Amber: 对。(Duì.)
DAVID: You might say “I work at Beijing.”
Amber: 我在北京工作。(Wǒ zài běijīng gōngzuò.)
DAVID: So we’re putting 在 (Zài) and then the place in front of the verb.
Amber: 唔,在北京工作。(Wú, zài běijīng gōngzuò.)
DAVID: Another example is…
Amber: 给。(Gěi.)
DAVID: Which means “to give” as a verb, but as a preposition it means “for” or “to”.
Amber: 没错, 给。(Méi cuò, gěi.)
DAVID: For instance, “I bought it for you.”
Amber: 我给你买的。(Wǒ gěi nǐ mǎi de.)
DAVID: I bought it for you.
Amber: 我给你买的。(Wǒ gěi nǐ mǎi de.)
DAVID: Right. Now, in these cases, the prepositions coming in front of the verb.
Amber: 对, 没错。(Duì, méi cuò.)
DAVID: What’s tricky is that sometimes we’re going to see prepositions, especially the preposition 在coming after a verb.
Amber: 对,很常见。(Duì, hěn chángjiàn.)
DAVID: Sometimes we’re going to see this, it can confuse people. Let’s have an example.
Amber: 你放在哪儿了?(Nǐ fàng zài nǎ'erle?)
DAVID: Where did you put it?
Amber: 你放在哪儿了?(Nǐ fàng zài nǎ'erle?)
DAVID: Or “Where did you lose it?”
Amber: 你丢在哪儿了?(Nǐ diū zài nǎ'erle?)
DAVID: Where did you lose it?
Amber: 你丢在哪儿了?(Nǐ diū zài nǎ'erle?)
DAVID: Right. Now, this confuses people because we’ve taught you one thing, and you see a sentence like this…
Amber: 对。(Duì.)
DAVID: What’s happening? Are we lying? No. The trick is that in these cases, 在 (Zài) is being treated as a verb complement.
Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.)
DAVID: There are a couple of verbs like…
Amber: 放。(Fàng.)
DAVID: To place.
Amber: 丢。(diū.)
DAVID: To lose.
Amber: 掷。(Zhì.)
DAVID: To throw.
Amber: 对。(Duì.)
DAVID: Where, because of the meaning of the word, it makes sense to put 在 (Zài) after the verb. You can't do this with every single verb. So you couldn’t say 工作在 .(Gōngzuò zài.)
Amber: 对。(Duì.)
DAVID: Right? And most of the verbs you can do this with are one character long.
Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.)
DAVID: But you are going to see this on occasion. Let’s have a couple more examples.
Amber: 手机丢在车里了。(Shǒujī diū zài chē lǐle.)
DAVID: The cellphone is lost in the car.
Amber: 手机丢在车里了。(Shǒujī diū zài chē lǐle.)
DAVID: Or “I left the phone in the car”, right?
Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.)
DAVID: Another example.
Amber: 笔记本放在桌子上。(Bǐjìběn fàng zài zhuōzi shàng.)
DAVID: The laptop is one the table.
Amber: 笔记本放在桌子上。(Bǐjìběn fàng zài zhuōzi shàng.)
DAVID: How about “I threw it in the trash”?
Amber: 我扔在拉基箱里了。(Wǒ rēng zài lā jī xiāng lǐle.)
DAVID: I threw it in the trash.
Amber: 我扔在拉基箱里了。(Wǒ rēng zài lā jī xiāng lǐle.)
DAVID: Right. So, in these cases, 在 and most the time, it’s 在 (Zài), it’s not acting as a preposition.
Amber: 对,不是介词。(Duì, bùshì jiècí.)
DAVID: Yeah, it’s a verb complement. Don’t let this throw you off your game dealing with prepositions normally.
Amber: 对。(Duì.)
DAVID: One final point to make though is often when you have verbs that will take 在 (Zài) as a verb complement, you can often drop them in speech.
Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.)
DAVID: So those three sentences we just gave you, you can use them without the verb complement too.
Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.)
DAVID: For instance.
Amber: 手机丢车里了。(Shǒujī diū chē lǐle.)
DAVID: I left my cellphone in the car.
Amber: 手机丢车里了。(Shǒujī diū chē lǐle.)
DAVID: I left my cellphone in the car.
Amber: 笔记本放桌子上。(Bǐjìběn fàng zhuōzi shàng.)
DAVID: I put the laptop on the table.
Amber: 笔记本放桌子上。(Bǐjìběn fàng zhuōzi shàng.)
DAVID: “The laptop is one the table.” Last example.
Amber: 我扔拉基箱里了。(Wǒ rēng lā jī xiāng lǐle.)
DAVID: I threw it in the trash.
Amber: 我扔拉基箱里了。(Wǒ rēng lā jī xiāng lǐle.)
DAVID: “I threw it in the trash.” So, remember, prepositions go in front of verbs in Chinese.
Amber: 对。(Duì.)
DAVID: But there are some cases when you’re going to run into characters like…
Amber: 在。(Zài.)
DAVID: After a verb.
Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.)
DAVID: When you see this, it’s a verb complement, it’s not a preposition. And the tricky thing is that you can leave this out sometimes in more colloquial speech.
Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.)

Outro

DAVID: Now, it can be a bit tough to remember this if all you’re doing is listening to podcasts.
Amber: True, yeah.
DAVID: So that’s why we’ve got premium transcripts on ChineseClass101.com.
Amber: Yeah.
DAVID: Right? They’ve got the dialogue, we’ve got the vocab list and we’ve written down these grammar points with example sentences.
Amber: Right. So come to ChineseClass101.com.
DAVID: And download them. It is really going to help you.
Amber: Right.
DAVID: For now though, that is all the time we have and Amber needs to go buy a new phone. So thank you for listening, and we’re looking forward to seeing you on the site.
Amber: 下次见。(Xià cì jiàn.)

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