Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

David: Welcome to ChineseClass101. I’m David.
Echo: Hi! Da jia hao! 我是(Wǒ shì) Echo.
David: We are here with Lesson 44 in our first Beginner series.
Echo: 没错。第四十四课。(Méi cuò. Dì sìshísì kè.)
David: Yes. We’ve got a conversation for you, guys, today, which is between the hotel front desk and our hurried hotel visitor again.
Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér.)
David: He needs a room and he is in a situation of extreme need.
Echo: Yeah.
David: Yeah. So he wants it sent up right away.
Echo: 马上。(Mǎshàng.)
David: Right. So we’ve got the dialogue for you. Before we go there, though, we want to remind you, if you are studying with us with audio only, you may also be in a situation of extreme need.
Echo: Which is our PDF.
David: Right. You may also be in a situation of extreme need. For best results studying Chinese, in addition to listening, you should also be seeing the material written out. So either practice writing out the dialogues or you can get our PDFs as part of our premium package and you can get them all printed out for you.
Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér.)
David: With that, let’s go to the dialogue.
甲:您好,您有什么需要?(JIǍ: Nínhǎo, nín yǒu shénme xūyào?)
乙:我这儿没有手纸了。(YǏ: Wǒ zhèr méiyǒu shǒu zhǐ le.)
甲:对不起,我们马上送过来。(JIǍ: Duìbuqǐ, wǒmen mǎshàng sòng guòlai.)
乙:快一点儿,好吗?(YǏ: Kuài yīdiǎnr, hǎo ma?)
David: One more time, a bit slower.
甲:您好,您有什么需要?(JIǍ: Nínhǎo, nín yǒu shénme xūyào?)
乙:我这儿没有手纸了。(YǏ: Wǒ zhèr méiyǒu shǒu zhǐ le.)
甲:对不起,我们马上送过来。(JIǍ: Duìbuqǐ, wǒmen mǎshàng sòng guòlai.)
乙:快一点儿,好吗?(YǏ: Kuài yīdiǎnr, hǎo ma?)
甲:您好,您有什么需要?(JIǍ: Nínhǎo, nín yǒu shénme xūyào?)
David: Hello, what do you need?
乙:我这儿没有手纸了。(YǏ: Wǒ zhèr méiyǒu shǒu zhǐ le.)
David: I don't have any toilet paper here.
甲:对不起,我们马上送过来。(JIǍ: Duìbuqǐ, wǒmen mǎshàng sòng guòlai.)
David: I'm sorry. We will send some over right away.
乙:快一点儿,好吗?(YǏ: Kuài yīdiǎnr, hǎo ma?)
David: Hurry up, okay?
David: I’ve been in this situation.
Echo: Yeah?
David: But with no one to call.
Echo: Oh, Jesus!
David: It’s the worst. You’re not expecting. We’ve got vocab for you which is all about needing things and different kinds of paper.
Echo: Yeah. It’s very important for you to speak it out when you really need something.
David: Yeah. It’s going to be very important. So, why don’t we get to that right away?
Male: Now, the vocab section.
Echo: 需要(xūyào) [natural native speed]
David: To need.
Echo: 需要(xūyào) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 需要(xūyào) [natural native speed].
Echo: 手紙(shǒuzhǐ) [natural native speed].
David: Toilet paper.
Echo: 手紙 (shǒuzhǐ)[slowly - broken down by syllable]. 手紙(shǒuzhǐ) [natural native speed].
Echo: 餐巾紙(cānjīnzhǐ) [natural native speed].
David: Napkin or tissue paper.
Echo: 餐巾紙(cānjīnzhǐ) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 餐巾紙(cānjīnzhǐ) [natural native speed].
Echo: 報紙(bàozhǐ) [natural native speed].
David: Newspaper
Echo: 報紙(bàozhǐ) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 報紙(bàozhǐ) [natural native speed].
Echo: 牙刷(yáshuā) [natural native speed].
David: Toothbrush.
Echo: 牙刷(yáshuā) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 牙刷 (yáshuā)[natural native speed].
Echo: 牙膏(yágāo) [natural native speed].
David: Toothpaste.
Echo: 牙膏(yágāo) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 牙膏(yágāo) [natural native speed].
Echo: 快(kuài) [natural native speed].
David: Fast.
Echo: 快(kuài) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 快(kuài) [natural native speed].
Echo: 慢(màn) [natural native speed].
David: Slow.
Echo: 慢(màn) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 慢(màn) [natural native speed].
David: Okay, we’re back. A lot of different kinds of paper there. It’s easy to get them confused. So in this lesson, we’re going to sort them out and we’re going to be practicing, putting them into really simple sentences you can use every day.
Echo: Right.
David: Let’s get started with the line from our dialogue.
Echo: 我这没有手纸了。(Wǒ zhè méiyǒu shǒuzhǐle)
David: Right. Let’s take out the word 这(Zhè) which means “here”.
Echo: 我没有手纸了。(Wǒ méiyǒu shǒuzhǐle.)
David: “I don’t have toilet paper.” Again.
Echo: 我没有手纸了。(Wǒ méiyǒu shǒuzhǐle)
David: So we can replace this with other kinds of paper. You could say, “I don’t have napkins.”
Echo: 我没有餐巾纸了。(Wǒ méiyǒu cānjīnzhǐle)
David: Right. This is not just the napkins you’re going to get in a restaurant. These are also kind of tissues. So if you’re shopping at a convenient store and you ask for…
Echo: 餐巾纸。(Cānjīnzhǐ)
David: They’re going to sell you little packets that are basically one kwai each and you can use those if you need to go to a public washroom.
Echo: Yeah.
David: So we’ve got those sentences which are “I have” or “I don’t have”
Echo: 我有手纸。(Wǒ yǒu shǒuzhǐ)
David: Or…
Echo: 我没有手纸。(Wǒ méiyǒu shǒuzhǐ)
David: In this lesson, we also see the word “to need”.
Echo: 需要。(Xūyào)
David: This is a lot like the word in English “need”, right?
Echo: Right.
David: Echo, what’s the difference.
Echo: This word 需要 (xūyào)can both be a noun or a verb.
David: Right. Actually, that’s just like English, too. In our dialogue, we actually see this as a noun.
Echo: 您有什么需要?(nín yǒu shénme xūyào?)
David: You have what need.
Echo: Right.
David: However, you could also say, “I need toilet paper”.
Echo: 我需要手纸。(Wǒ xūyào shǒuzhǐ.)
David: And it would be a verb. Or, “I need tissue paper”.
Echo: 我需要餐巾纸。(Wǒ xūyào cānjīnzhǐ.)
David: Or maybe you’re at work and you need time.
Echo: 我需要时间。(Wǒ xūyào shíjiān)
David: We also tossed in the third form of paper here, which is newspaper.
Echo: 我需要报纸。(Wǒ xūyào bàozhǐ.)
David: Right. I need a newspaper.
Echo: 我需要一张报纸。(Wǒ xūyào yī zhāng bàozhǐ.)
David: How much is this newspaper?
Echo: 这个报纸多少钱?(Zhège bàozhǐ duōshǎo qián?)
David: So to review, we’ve got the word “to need”.
Echo: 需要。(xūyào.)
David: We’ve got three kinds of paper: toilet paper…
Echo: 手纸。(shǒuzhǐ)
David: …tissue paper or napkins.
Echo: 餐巾纸。(cānjīnzhǐ.)
David: And finally, we have newspaper.
Echo: 报纸。(bàozhǐ.)
David: With that’s let’s get on to the grammar section.
Male: It’s grammar time!
David: Our grammar section for today is all about review. We’ve done this before and we want to focus on telling people how to say “do it faster” or “do it slower”. In the dialogue, we had this line…
Echo: 快一点儿,好吗?(Kuài yīdiǎn er, hǎo ma?)
David: Right. So there are two parts to this, and the first part is the adjective…
Echo: 快。(Kuài.)
David: And the second part is a little bit.
Echo: 一点儿。(Yīdiǎn er.)
David: Things to notice, first of all, is that we’ve got this 儿化音(Ér huà yīn) on the second part.
Echo: 点儿。(Diǎn er.)
David: Right. Without the 儿化音(Ér huà yīn), we’re actually saying…
Echo: 点。(Diǎn.)
David: …which is a dot or a bit.
Echo: Right.
David: However, it’s standard Mandarin to add 儿化音(Ér huà yīn), so practice it. Echo, let’s hear it again.
Echo: 一点儿。(Yīdiǎn er.)
David: Right. If you don’t add this, you were technically wrong, so make sure you add it. Second thing to know is that the adjective we’re using, we’re using to talk about degrees of something.
Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér.)
David: Right. So the adjective has to be something that has degrees.
Echo: Right.
David: Degrees of fast, degrees of slow.
Echo: So it can’t be any adjectives here.
David: Yeah. You can’t just put any adjective in there. Let’s have some other examples. Echo will give us the sentence. See if you can figure out what it means before I give the translation, okay? Echo, let’s get going.
Echo: 你开得太快了(Nǐ kāi dé tài kuàile),慢一点儿。(Màn yīdiǎn er.)
David: “You’re driving too quickly. Drive a bit slower.” Let’s hear that one more time, “a bit slower”.
Echo: 慢一点儿。你开得太快了。(Màn yīdiǎn er. Nǐ kāi dé tài kuàile.)
David: Next.
Echo: 把花放在那儿,高一点儿。(Bǎ huā fàng zài nà'er, gāo yīdiǎn er.)
David: “Take the plants and put them there, a little bit higher.”
Echo: 高一点儿。(Gāo yīdiǎn er.)
David: Higher; a bit.
Echo: 高一点儿。(Gāo yīdiǎn er.)
David: Next.
Echo: 太贵了,便宜一点儿,好吗?(Tài guìle, piányí yīdiǎn er, hǎo ma?)
David: That’s too expensive. Make it a bit cheaper, okay?
Echo: 便宜一点儿(Piányí yīdiǎn er)
David: A little bit cheaper.
Echo: 贵了,便宜一点儿,好吗?(Guìle, piányí yīdiǎn er, hǎo ma?)
David: Right. So we don’t just need to use these with singular character adjectives. We can use it with two-character adjectives with nothing else we want.
Echo: 没错儿。对。(Méi cuò ér. Duì.)
David: Okay. Before we go, there’s one more related structure we wanted to highlight, too.
Echo: Right.
David: What’s that, Echo?
Echo: It’s 有一点儿(Yǒu yīdiǎn er) plus an adjective.
David: Right. This is related and it means “to be a little” adjective.
Echo: Right.
David: To be a little fast.
Echo: 有一点儿快。(Yǒu yīdiǎn er kuài.)
David: To be a bit expensive.
Echo: 有一点儿贵。(Yǒu yīdiǎn er guì.)
David: Right.
Echo: Or you can omit the 一(Yī), like 有点儿贵.(Yǒudiǎn er guì.)
David: Yeah. That’s really, really colloquial. You’re going to sound really natural if you do that. As before, let’s give you some examples and then we’ll come in with the translation. Echo?
Echo: 有点儿快。(Yǒudiǎn er kuài.)
David: To be a little fast.
Echo: 他说话有点儿快。(Tā shuōhuà yǒudiǎn er kuài.)
David: He’s speaking a bit too fast.
Echo: 我有点儿累。(Wǒ yǒudiǎn er lèi.)
David: I’m a little tired.
Echo: 有点儿累。(Yǒudiǎn er lèi.)
David: To be a little tired.
Echo: 这个有点儿贵。(Zhège yǒudiǎn er guì.)
David: This is a little expensive.
Echo: 有点儿贵。(Yǒudiǎn er guì.)
David: “To be a little expensive.” Right. So two easy patterns you can remember. The first is adjective of degree.
Echo: 快。(Kuài.)
David: Plus, “a little bit”.
Echo: 一点儿,快一点儿。(Yīdiǎn er, kuài yīdiǎn er.)
David: And the second is “to be a little” adjective.
Echo: 有一点儿快。(Yǒu yīdiǎn er kuài.)
David: Right. With that, we’re done with our podcast for today. Before we go, as always, there’s something we’d like to say, and that’s that we know if you’re studying often outside of China, learning Chinese can be difficult and it can feel de-motivating at times.
Echo: Right.
David: Right. You can feel all alone because, let’s be honest, there aren’t a lot of people yet who are learning Chinese.
Echo: But 别担心(Bié dānxīn), you have us.
David: Right. If you have any questions, if you have any concerns or if you even have suggestions on things we can do to make your life easier…
Echo: Yeah, you are always welcome to write us or leave us comments.
David: Right. Please do let us know. We’d love to hear it from you. From Beijing, I’m David.
Echo: 我是(Wǒ shì) Echo.
David: Thanks a lot for listening and we’ll see you next week.
Echo: Bye-bye.

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