Learn Chinese how to form resultative verb complements and learn about the Forbidden City
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Hi everyone and welcome to chineseclass101.com, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn Chinese. |
| Echo: 嗨，大家好，我是 (Hāi, dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: And I am David. Hi everyone, I am David. |
| Echo: 嗨，大家好，我是 (Hāi, dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: And we are back with |
| Echo: Chineseclass101.com |
| David: Right and we have season 1, lesson 14 at our Elementary level. The Newest Chinese Starbucks Locale. |
| Echo: That’s right. |
| David: Right. So in this lesson, we are going to talk about a famous landmark in Beijing. |
| Echo: This conversation takes place inside the Forbidden City at China’s newest Starbucks store. |
| David: Right and the conversation is between two tourists who are new to Beijing. |
| Echo: And they are speaking casual Mandarin. |
| David: As always. Now we are going to take you to the dialogue in a sec. Before we do, we want to talk a bit about our one on one tutoring service. |
| Echo: 没错，非常棒。(Méi cuò, fēicháng bàng.) |
| David: Yes. This is the elite package and for a touch over 80 bucks a month. You get an hour of conversation practice with a real Chinese speaker from here in Beijing. |
| Echo: That’s right. |
| David: Right. It’s a really… |
| Echo: Great deal. |
| David: It’s a really great deal and a great way to actually get speaking practice with someone who is going to give you one on one feedback. Let’s go to the dialogue. This is actually a true story. |
| Echo: 是的。(Shì de.) |
| DIALOGUE |
| A:欢迎来到故宫。(Huan1ying2 lai2 dao4 gu4gong1 。) |
| B:哇！故宫怎么这么大啊？(Wa1! gu4gong1 zen3me5 zhe4me5 da4 a5 ？) |
| A:没错儿，皇帝以前就住在这儿。(Mei2 cuo4r5 ， Huang2di4 yi3qian2 jiu4 zhu4 zai4 zhe4r5 。) |
| B:你看，那儿有一个星巴克。(Ni3 kan4 ，Na4r5 you3 yi1 ge5 xing1ba1ke4 。) |
| A:哦，现在的故宫已经不是以前的故宫了。(O5 ， Xian4zai4 de5 gu4gong1 yi3jing1 bu4 shi4 yi3qian2 de5 gu4gong1 le5 。) |
| Once more slowly. |
| A:欢迎来到故宫。(Huan1ying2 lai2 dao4 gu4gong1 。) |
| B:哇！故宫怎么这么大啊？(Wa1! gu4gong1 zen3me5 zhe4me5 da4 a5 ？) |
| A:没错儿，皇帝以前就住在这儿。(Mei2 cuo4r5 ， Huang2di4 yi3qian2 jiu4 zhu4 zai4 zhe4r5 。) |
| B:你看，那儿有一个星巴克。(Ni3 kan4 ，Na4r5 you3 yi1 ge5 xing1ba1ke4 。) |
| A:哦，现在的故宫已经不是以前的故宫了。(O5 ， Xian4zai4 de5 gu4gong1 yi3jing1 bu4 shi4 yi3qian2 de5 gu4gong1 le5 。) |
| Once more, with English translation. |
| A:欢迎来到故宫。(Huan1ying2 lai2 dao4 gu4gong1 。) |
| A:Welcome to the Forbidden City. |
| B:哇！故宫怎么这么大啊？(Wa1! gu4gong1 zen3me5 zhe4me5 da4 a5 ？) |
| B:Whoaa! The Forbidden City is huge! |
| A:没错儿，皇帝以前就住在这儿。(Mei2 cuo4r5 ， Huang2di4 yi3qian2 jiu4 zhu4 zai4 zhe4r5 。) |
| A:That's right. The Emperor used to live here. |
| B:你看，那儿有一个星巴克。(Ni3 kan4 ，Na4r5 you3 yi1 ge5 xing1ba1ke4 。) |
| B:Hey look, there's a Starbucks over there. |
| A:哦，现在的故宫已经不是以前的故宫了。(O5 ， Xian4zai4 de5 gu4gong1 yi3jing1 bu4 shi4 yi3qian2 de5 gu4gong1 le5 。) |
| A:Oh, the Forbidden City is different than it used to be. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: I remember when I came to Beijing for the first time, what you get is you get those painting scams.. |
| Echo: Yeah.. |
| David: Where they – people pull you to room and try to sell you you know paintings for a lot of money that were really cheap. So they moved those guys out and they moved in a Starbucks. |
| Echo: That’s a… |
| David: It’s a step up. |
| Echo: Good move. |
| David: And then they moved it out again. I think it was what? 2007 because people complained. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Coffee in the Forbidden City! |
| Echo: Yeah but I guess, you foreigners must have liked it very much. |
| David: We like coffee. Anyway, we’ve got a lot of vocab which is about the Forbidden City and Starbucks. So why don’t we get to that now? |
| Echo: 好的。(Hǎo de.) |
| VOCAB LIST |
| David: And now the vocab section. |
| Echo: 故宫 (Gùgōng) |
| David: The Forbidden City. |
| Echo: 哇 (wa) |
| David: Wow! |
| Echo: 皇帝 (huángdì) |
| David: Emperor. |
| Echo: 以前 (yǐqián) |
| David: Before. |
| Echo: 住 (zhù) |
| David: To live. |
| Echo: 星巴克 (xīngbākè) |
| David: Starbucks. |
| Echo: 已经 (yǐjīng) |
| David: Already. |
| Echo: 皇宫 (huánggōng) |
| David: Imperial palace. |
| Echo: 皇宫 (huánggōng) |
| David: So our first word for today is a cultural icon in Beijing. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Echo: 故宫 (Gùgōng) |
| David: The Forbidden City. |
| Echo: 故宫。(Gùgōng.) |
| David: Right and where is the Forbidden City Echo? |
| Echo: 故宫就在北京的中心。(Gùgōng jiù zài běijīng de zhōngxīn.) |
| David: The Forbidden City is in the center of Beijing. |
| Echo: Right故宫就在北京的中心。(Gùgōng jiù zài běijīng de zhōngxīn.) |
| David: Right and we’ve got 就在 (Jiù zài) which is its right in the center of Beijing and it’s just north of Tiananmen square. |
| Echo: That’s right. |
| David: So this is a true story as we said. A few years ago, they put a Starbucks there. |
| Echo: 星巴克。(Xīngbākè.) |
| David: Starbucks. |
| Echo: 星巴克。(Xīngbākè.) |
| David: So you could say |
| Echo: 故宫以前有一个星巴克。(Gùgōng yǐqián yǒu yīgè xīngbākè.) |
| David: The Forbidden City had a Starbucks. |
| Echo: 很奇怪。(Hěn qíguài.) |
| David: Coffee. |
| Echo: 故宫以前有一个星巴克。(Gùgōng yǐqián yǒu yīgè xīngbākè.) |
| David: Anyway our next word is not really a word. |
| Echo: Right. It’s a sound you make 哇 (Wa) |
| David: Right its wow! |
| Echo: 哇。(Wa.) |
| David: Or whoa! Come on Echo, draw it out. |
| Echo: 哇。(Wa.) |
| David: Yeah. |
| Echo: 星巴克这么多。(Xīngbākè zhème duō.) |
| David: Wow! There are so many Starbucks. |
| Echo: Yeah 哇，星巴克这么多。(Wa, xīngbākè zhème duō.) |
| David: Right. It’s a natural sound. It’s kind of like whoa or wow. |
| Echo: It’s the way to explain your feelings. |
| David: Yeah to express surprise. So we’ve talked a bit about life after Starbucks. What about life before Starbucks. |
| Echo: 以前。(Yǐqián.) |
| David: Before. |
| Echo: 以前。以前皇帝住在故宫里。(Yǐqián. Yǐqián huángdì zhù zài gùgōng lǐ.) |
| David: In the past, the emperor lived in the Forbidden City. |
| Echo: 以前皇帝住在故宫里。(Yǐqián huángdì zhù zài gùgōng lǐ.) |
| David: Right and this introduces our next two words. In that sentence, we have the word for emperor. |
| Echo: 皇帝。(Huángdì.) |
| David: Emperor. |
| Echo: 皇帝。(Huángdì.) |
| David: Right. Where does the emperor live? |
| Echo: 皇宫。(Huánggōng.) |
| David: Imperial palace. |
| Echo: 以前皇帝住在皇宫里。(Yǐqián huángdì zhù zài huánggōng lǐ.) |
| David: In the past, the emperor lived in the imperial palace. |
| Echo: 以前皇帝住在皇宫里。(Yǐqián huángdì zhù zài huánggōng lǐ.) |
| David: Now you may be getting confused at this point because we’ve given you two words. |
| Echo: 故宫。(Gùgōng.) |
| David: And we’ve given you |
| Echo: 皇宫。(Huánggōng.) |
| David: Both of these are 宫 or palaces. What’s the difference? |
| Echo: 皇宫 (Huánggōng) is just the general word for a palace. |
| David: Yeah. |
| Echo: Where as 故宫 (Gùgōng) is specific to Beijing. |
| David: Right. So now that we’ve sorted that out, let’s move on to the grammar section. It’s a good one. |
| Echo: 好的。(Hǎo de.) |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: It’s grammar time. Our grammar point today is |
| Echo: Verb complements. |
| David: Right which sounds intimidating. |
| Echo: But it’s not. |
| David: Right and we are going to make this simple for you. To start off, we all know what a verb is. |
| Echo: Right 来 or 住。(Lái or Zhù.) |
| David: Right 来 (Lái) means to come, we know and |
| Echo: 住。(Zhù.) |
| David: Means to live or to stay. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Now in Chinese, sometimes we can add things to the end of verbs that change the meaning of the verb slightly. |
| Echo: Right look at 来到.(Lái dào.) This has both 来 (Lái) to come and 到(dào) to arrive. |
| David: To come and arrive. |
| Echo: And 到 (dào) there is a verb complement. |
| David: Right. 到 tells us the result of 来。(Lái.) |
| Echo: Right 来到。(Lái dào.) |
| David: To come to a place. Okay this is a bit tricky. So we are going to simplify it by just looking at some sample sentences and picking out the verb complements. Echo, what’s our first example? |
| Echo: 我吃完饭了。(Wǒ chī wán fànle.) |
| David: I finished eating. |
| Echo: 吃完，我吃完饭了。(Chī wán, wǒ chī wán fànle.) |
| David: I finished eating. What’s next? |
| Echo: 你做完作业了吗？(Nǐ zuò wán zuòyèle ma?) |
| David: Have you finished your homework? |
| Echo: 你做完作业了吗？(Nǐ zuò wán zuòyèle ma?) |
| David: Right. So we have 做完 (Zuò wán) which is have you done and finished? |
| Echo: Our next example is 我想好了。(Wǒ xiǎng hǎole.) |
| David: I’ve thought of it. |
| Echo: 我想好了。(Wǒ xiǎng hǎole.) and 好 (Hǎo) is the verb complement there. |
| David: Okay. So our verb is 想 (Xiǎng) to think and the result is |
| Echo: 好。(Hǎo.) |
| David: It’s done or it’s finished. |
| Echo: Right 我想好了，你呢？(Wǒ xiǎng hǎole, nǐ ne.) |
| David: I thought about it. How about you? |
| Echo: One more 走到那儿太远了。(Zǒu dào nà'er tài yuǎnle.) |
| David: Walking there is too far. |
| Echo: 走到那儿太远了。(Zǒu dào nà'er tài yuǎnle.) |
| David: Okay. So now we’ve had some practice and we can identify verb complements. What are some of the most common ones? |
| Echo: Like in this lesson 到。(Dào.) |
| David: To arrive at. |
| Echo: We can say 开到。(Kāi dào.) |
| David: To drive to. |
| Echo: 飞到。(Fēi dào.) |
| David: To fly to. |
| Echo: 跑到。(Pǎo dào.) |
| David: To run to. |
| Echo: 走到。(Zǒu dào.) |
| David: To go to. Anything with movement, we can add 到。(Dào.) |
| Echo: We’ve also seen 好。(Hǎo.) |
| David: Which means to finish or to do something well. |
| Echo: 你吃好了吗？(Nǐ chī hǎole ma?) |
| David: Have you eaten well, are you full? |
| Echo: 你吃好了吗？(Nǐ chī hǎole ma?) |
| David: Sounds a bit strange in English, but its fine in Chinese. |
| Echo: Yeah 他还没有吃好。(Tā hái méiyǒu chī hǎo.) |
| David: Right. He still hasn’t eaten or maybe he’s eaten a bit but he is not full. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So by now we know |
| Echo: 到。(Dào.) |
| David: And |
| Echo: 好。(Hǎo.) |
| David: Let’s learn one more. |
| Echo: Yeah don’t forget 完。(Wán.) |
| David: To finish. |
| Echo: 做完。(Zuò wán.) |
| David: To finish doing. |
| Echo: 说完。(Shuō wán.) |
| David: To finish speaking. |
| Echo: Yeah there are a lot. |
Outro |
| David: Yeah. There are tons of them and our dialogue for today has lot of 来到 (Lái dào) to come to. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Okay. |
| Echo: Not that difficult. |
| David: No. If you’d like more information on all of these verb complements though, the place you are going to get it is in our premium lesson PDF. If you are a premium subscriber, you can download it right from our site or get it from your premium RSS feed. |
| Echo: That’s right. |
| David: And if you are not a premium subscriber, sign up so you are not missing out on this stuff. It will help you make better progress. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Okay. With that though, that’s our podcast for today. From Beijing, I am David. |
| Echo: 我是 (Wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: Thanks a lot for listening and we will see you on the site. |
| Echo: 网上见，再见。(Wǎngshàng jiàn, zàijiàn.) |
Easily master this lesson’s grammar points with in-depth explanations and examples. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
36 Comments
HideHow many Starbucks do you think there are in China? Give it your best guess.
Hello robert groulx,
Thank you for your comment, we hope you enjoyed the lesson!
If you have any questions, please let us know.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
thanks for the lesson
my favorite words are 你吃好了吗
robert
Hello Roger,
Thank you for your comment. 怎么 means "how", 这么 means "so", when they're put together it means "how is something so...".
Hope it helps, let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hi there, can you please help me to understand the word combination and usage for怎么这么.
Thank you.
Hello Celestial Topaz,
Thank you for your comment. 走 has many meanings, it can mean "to go", "to walk", based on the context. In this sentence "走到那儿太远了" it means to walk somewhere.
Hope it helps, let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hi Team!
I'm a bit confused by something.
In the transcript, an example sentence was 走到那儿太远了 and gave the translation given was, "walking there is too far".
A little later on in the transcript, we are told that 走到 means 'to go'.
I was under the assumption that 走路 specifically referred to walking and that 走 without 路 means something more like 'to go'.
Can you clarify this for me please?
Thank you in advance!
Hello, John Mills,
完 ＝ 整 ＝ completed ＝ 完整
In Chinese, we usually use two characters which have the same meaning to compose a two-character word, which of course also have the same meaning.
For example,
行 ＝ 走 ＝ walk= 行走
询 ＝ 问 ＝ ask ＝ 询问
美 ＝ 丽 ＝ beautiful = 美丽
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hello, John Mills,
Maybe it is not a grammar point.
我看着她，看到她很高兴。
This sentences can be divided into 2 sentences.
我看着她。 我看到她很高兴。The subject of these two sentences are both 我, so the second one can be omitted.
I looked at here. I could see(I known) she was happy.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hello, John,
Thank you for your comments.
If you have any question, please let us know.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hello, Al,
Thank you for all the comments.
If you have any question, please let us know.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com