Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Echo: Hi, I’m Echo.
David: I’m David, and welcome back to ChineseClass101.com. This is Lesson 25 in our Absolute Beginner Series, Getting a Train Ticket in China.
Echo: Right.
David: So today, we’ve got a dialogue which involves buying a train ticket at the train station.
Echo: Right. And you will also learn about times of day.
David: Right. We’ve got a conversation that takes place at the ticket booth between a ticket seller and a traveler.
Echo: Right. And they are speaking casual Mandarin.
David: Right, as always. Now, before we get to the dialogue, we want to remind you, if you’re listening on an iPod...
Echo: Or an iTouch or iPhone...
David: You can click on the center button of the iPod or just tap the screen of the iTouch or iPhone and you can see the lesson notes while you listen.
Echo: Right. Read along while you listen.
David: Give it a shot.
Echo: Right.
David: Let’s go on to the dialogue.
DIALOGUES
David: 我要一张到北京的票。(Wǒ yào yì zhāng dào Běijīng de piào.)
Echo: 今天的吗?(Jīntiān de ma?)
David: 对。(Duì.)
Echo: 你要上午11点的,下午3点的,还是晚上7点的?(Nǐ yào shàngwǔ shíyī diǎn de, xiàwǔ sān diǎn de, háishì wǎnshàng qī diǎn de?)
David: 7点的。(Qī diǎn de.)
David: One more time, a bit slower.
David: 我要一张到北京的票。(Wǒ yào yì zhāng dào Běijīng de piào.)
Echo: 今天的吗?(Jīntiān de ma?)
David: 对。(Duì.)
Echo: 你要上午11点的,下午3点的,还是晚上7点的?(Nǐ yào shàngwǔ shíyī diǎn de, xiàwǔ sān diǎn de, háishì wǎnshàng qī diǎn de?)
David: 7点的。(Qī diǎn de.)
David: And now, with the English translation.
Echo: 我要一张到北京的票。(Wǒ yào yì zhāng dào Běijīng de piào.)
David: I want one ticket to Beijing.
Echo: 今天的吗?(Jīntiān de ma?)
David: For today?
Echo: 对。(Duì.)
David: Yes.
Echo: 你要上午11点的,下午3点的,还是晚上7点的?(Nǐ yào shàngwǔ shíyī diǎn de, xiàwǔ sān diǎn de, háishì wǎnshàng qī diǎn de?)
David: Do you want the one at 11:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the afternoon or 7:00 in the evening?
Echo: 7点的。(Qī diǎn de.)
David: The 7 o’clock one.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
David: I love taking the train in China.
Echo: Yeah.
David: But some of them, they take a while. I was once on the hard seater to Inner Mongolia which is only about eight hours and that was, that was not a lot of fun.
Echo: Yeah. But it’s a good way like to meet a lot of people there.
David: That’s true. If you do take the train, short distances, you are going to meet a lot of Chinese people who are going to be really happy to talk to you.
Echo: In Chinese.
David: In Chinese. Anyway, we’ve got a lot of vocabulary here for buying tickets and telling times.
Echo: Right.
David: So let’s get to that now.
Echo: Okay.
VOCAB LIST
David: And now, the vocab section.
Echo: 要(yào)
David: To want.
Echo: 張(zhāng)
David: Measure word.
Echo: 到(dào)
David: To.
Echo: 北京(Běijīng)
David: Beijing.
Echo: 的(de)
David: A possessive or subordinating particle.
Echo: 票(piào)
David: Ticket.
Echo: 今天(jīntiān)
David: Today.
Echo: 上午(shàngwǔ)
David: Morning.
Echo: 下午(xiàwǔ)
David: Afternoon.
Echo: 晚上(wǎnshàng)
David: Evening.
Echo: 還是(háishì)
David: Or.
KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES
David: Okay. So today, we have a lot of time words for you.
Echo: Right. Schedule, schedule, schedule.
David: Right. We’re going to start out with possibly with the most important one.
Echo: Yeah.
David: And that’s the word for today.
Echo: 今天(jīntiān).
David: Which is really important to know if you’re train is leaving today.
Echo: 今天(jīntiān).
David: Assuming it is, you also want to find out what time of the day.
Echo: Definitely.
David: Right. So the word we heard from morning was...
Echo: 上午(shàngwǔ).
David: Let’s hear that again, “Morning.”
Echo: 上午(shàngwǔ).
David: We can put these together and get, “Today, morning.”
Echo: 今天上午(Jīntiān shàngwǔ)
David: This morning.
Echo: 今天上午(Jīntiān shàngwǔ)
David: So this morning is literally “today morning.”
Echo: 今天上午(Jīntiān shàngwǔ)
David: So now you should know how to say, “This afternoon.”
Echo: 今天下午(Jīntiān xiàwǔ)
David: Right. That’s literally “today afternoon.”
Echo: 今天下午 / 上午 / 下午(Jīntiān xiàwǔ/ shàngwǔ/ xiàwǔ)
David: Technically 上午(Shàngwǔ) is late morning.
Echo: Yeah, a bit...
David: It starts maybe about 10 o’clock.
Echo: That’s true.
David: So when you just get out of bed and when you have breakfast...
Echo: We call that, 早上(Zǎoshang)
David: Right.
Echo: 早上(Zǎoshang)
David: So you could say, “This morning.”
Echo: 今天早上(Jīntiān zǎoshang)
David: Right, which would be sometime today before about 10 o’clock.
Echo: Right. 今天早上(Jīntiān zǎoshang)
David: In China, one common say people say good morning is to say...
Echo: 早(Zǎo)
David: Which is a short form of...
Echo: 早上好(Zǎoshang hǎo)
David: One other really useful word is the word for evening.
Echo: 晚上(Wǎnshàng)
David: As in the phrase, “See you in the evening.”
Echo: 晚上见!(Wǎnshàng jiàn!)
David: Or, “This evening.”
Echo: 今天晚上(Jīntiān wǎnshàng)
David: Okay. So by now we’ve got four times of day, “Early morning.”
Echo: 早上(Zǎoshang)
David: Late morning.
Echo: 上午(Shàngwǔ)
David: And then afternoon.
Echo: 下午(Xiàwǔ)
David: And finally, we have evening.
Echo: 晚上(Wǎnshàng)
David: As is, “Good evening.”
Echo: 晚上好(Wǎnshàng hǎo)
David: Or, “See you this evening.”
Echo: 晚上见(Wǎnshàng jiàn)
David: Right. Now, we know the times of day, let’s move on to the grammar section where we’re going to use the stuff.
GRAMMAR POINT
Echo: All right. We’ve got a great grammar section today.
David: We do. It’s all...
Echo: What it’s about?
David: It’s all about the times that we ran into in the dialogue.
Echo: Yeah.
David: Because they’re not just times, there’s something funky going on. But before we look at that, let’s take a look at this sentence from the dialogue.
Echo: 我要一张到北京的票。(Wǒ yào yī zhāng dào běijīng de piào.)
David: Now, as we remember...
Echo: 要(Yào)
David: Means, “to want.”
Echo: Uh-hmm, like 我要水(Wǒ yào shuǐ).
David: “I want water” and in the summer, you will definitely be saying that.
Echo: Yeah.
David: But in this case, he wants one ticket to Beijing.
Echo: 一张到北京的票(Yī zhāng dào běijīng de piào)
David: Okay. Getting the difficult thing out of the way, we’ve got a measure word in there which is for ticket.
Echo: 张(Zhāng)
David: It’s anything that’s flat and square...
Echo: Yeah.
David: Ticket is like a piece of paper.
Echo: Yeah. 一张票(Yī zhāng piào)
David: But in this case, it’s not any ticket, it’s a ticket to Beijing.
Echo: 到北京的票 ... 一张到北京的票(Dào běijīng de piào... Yī zhāng dào běijīng de piào)
David: Right. So what we want to focus on today is this particle 的(De).
Echo: Yeah.
David: Now, technically, this is called the subordinating particle which is a pretty nasty way of saying, it makes the thing that comes after, belong to or subordinate of the thing that comes before.
Echo: Yes. So this 票 is 到北京的(Piào is dào běijīng de).
David: Right. The ticket is subordinate to, to Beijing. It belongs to the category of things that is to Beijing.
Echo: Right. And we’ll see this again later in the dialogue.
David: Right. When they say, “What times the tickets are?”
Echo: "上午11点的(Shàngwǔ 11 diǎn de),下午3点的(Xiàwǔ 3 diǎn de),还是晚上7点的(Háishì wǎnshàng 7 diǎn de)"
David: If we cut out that last 的(De) we could see the actual times of the tickets.
Echo: 上午11点(Shàngwǔ 11 diǎn)
David: 11 o’clock in the morning.
Echo: 下午3点(Xiàwǔ 3 diǎn)
David: 3:00 in the afternoon.
Echo: 晚上7点(Wǎnshàng 7 diǎn)
David: 7:00 in the evening.
Echo: Right.
David: Now, this stuff you guys should already know because we covered basic time in Lesson 5.
Echo: But in the dialogue, that actually said, 上午11点的(Shàngwǔ 11 diǎn de), 下午3点的(Xiàwǔ 3 diǎn de), 晚上7点的...(Wǎnshàng 7 diǎn de...)
David: Right. Something is up. This is Lesson 25, so we’re getting tricky here.
Echo: Right.
David: We want to tell you what that 的(De) is doing because you’re going to run into this all the time.
Echo: Right.
David: Now, it’s the same thing we’re seeing here that we saw on the first example we talked about.
Echo: Right, so it should be 上午11点的票(Shàngwǔ 11 diǎn de piào). 下午3点的票(Xiàwǔ 3 diǎn de piào) and 晚上7点的票(Wǎnshàng 7 diǎn de piào)
David: Right. We’ve still got the subordinating relationship. All we’ve done is we’ve left out the word for ticket.
Echo: Right.
David: Because we already know we’re talking about a ticket. So, when you run into this, when you’ve got a 的(De) at the end of something like that...
Echo: Yeah.
David: It’s a clue that the Chinese speaker is leaving something out.
Echo: Right. So like object of 的(De) we already know.
David: Yeah. It becomes a noun or a noun phrase.
Echo: 上午11点的(Shàngwǔ 11 diǎn de)
David: The one at 11:00 AM.
Echo: 下午3点的(Xiàwǔ 3 diǎn de)
David: The one at 3:00 PM. Now, what that one is, it’s up to you to figure out from context.
Echo: Right.
David: Okay? So, this is a bit tricky. Now, you know what’s going on. You guys should be able to master it.
David: With that though, that about does it for us for today. Remember, before you go, you can leave us a comment on this lesson.
Echo: Right. If you have any questions or feedback...
David: Right, please just leave us a comment. It’s easy to do, come to...
Echo: ChineseClass101.com.
David: Click on comments...
Echo: Right.
David: Enter your comment, a name and that’s it. Okay? From Beijing, I’m David.
Echo: I’m Echo.
David: Thanks a lot for listening and we will see you next time.

Outro

David:再见!(Zàijiàn!)
Echo:再见!(Zàijiàn!)

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