Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
David: Welcome to chineseclass101. I am David.
Echo: 嗨,大家好,我是Echo. (Hāi, dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì Echo.)
David: And we are here with lesson #36 in the first elementary series.
Echo: 没错,第三十六课。(Méi cuò, dì sānshíliù kè.)
David: Right. So this is perfect for each of our to get the basics under your belt and you are looking for something a bit more challenging. We’ve got a dialogue for you today which is between two friends, one of whom has a coordination problem. We are going to take you to the dialogue but before we do, we wanted to remind you. Previously, we told you signing up for a life time account takes 7 seconds.
Echo: 非常快。(Fēicháng kuài.)
David: We did extensive testing on the weekend and we got this down to 5 seconds. We are going to take you into the dialogue now. We are going to play it one time fast, one time slow and then we are going to translate it for you line by line. Let’s take a listen.
DIALOGUE
A:你还好吗?你好像有点儿......(Nǐ hái hǎo ma? Nǐ hǎoxiàng yǒu diǎnr ...)
B:别提了。(Bié tí le.)
A:怎么了?(Zěnmele?)
B:我撞到门了。(Wǒ zhuàngdào mén le.)
A:你撞到门了?真傻!(Nǐ zhuàngdào mén le? Zhēn shǎ!)
Once more slowly.
A:你还好吗?你好像有点儿......(Nǐ hái hǎo ma? Nǐ hǎoxiàng yǒu diǎnr ...)
B:别提了。(Bié tí le.)
A:怎么了?(Zěnmele?)
B:我撞到门了。(Wǒ zhuàngdào mén le.)
A:你撞到门了?真傻!(Nǐ zhuàngdào mén le? Zhēn shǎ!)
Echo: 你还好吗?你好像有点儿......(Nǐ hái hǎo ma? Nǐ hǎoxiàng yǒu diǎnr ...)
David: Are you okay, you seem a bit…
Echo: 别提了。(Bié tí le.)
David: Don’t mention it.
Echo: 怎么了?(Zěnmele?)
David: What, what’s up?
Echo: 我撞到门了。(Wǒ zhuàngdào mén le.)
David: I walked into the door.
Echo: 你撞到门了?真傻!(Nǐ zhuàngdào mén le? Zhēn shǎ!)
David: You walked into the door. How stupid!
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
David: Okay we are back. Echo, has this ever happened to you?
Echo: No of course not. I am a lady. How about you?
David: I have to admit. I have walked into the odd light pole or a telephone pole on occasion.
Echo: Okay.
David: And you feel really, really stupid when it happens which brings us to the first two words in our vocab section for today.
VOCAB LIST
Echo: 傻(shǎ)
David: Stupid.
Echo: 笨 (bèn)
David: Dumb. And these are really, really common and also a bit maybe a bit colloquial too.
Echo: Yeah.
David: Echo
Echo: 你又撞到脚了,好傻。 (Nǐ yòu zhuàngdào jiǎo le, hǎo shǎ.)
David: You hit your foot again, how stupid!
Echo: 他总是摔倒,太笨了。(Tā zǒngshì shuāidǎo, tài bèn le.)
David: He is always falling down. How stupid! And these words are 差不多。(Chàbùduō.)
Echo:没错。(Méi cuò.)
David: But there is a slight difference in meaning. Yeah.
Echo: 因为“傻”可能人们会说你的脑子有问题。(Yīnwèi “shǎ” kěnéng rénmen huì shuō nǐ de nǎozi yǒu wèntí.)
David: Okay yeah.
Echo: 但是如果你说一个人很“笨”可能是他做事情不太好。(Dànshì rúguǒ nǐ shuō yīgè rén hěn “bèn” kěnéng shì tā zuò shìqíng bù tài hǎo.)
David: Okay.
Echo: It’s physical.
David: Okay so 傻 (Shǎ) is really talking about someone’s mental abilities.
Echo: Right.
David: And 笨 (Bèn) it’s just saying kind of generally dumb and dim-witted and stuff.
Echo: 对(Duì)。
David: Okay in the rest of our vocab section, we want to highlight three words for bumping and crashing into things.
VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE
Echo: 非常有用。(Fēicháng yǒuyòng.)
David: Yes. The first one is in the dialogue.
Echo: 撞。(Zhuàng.)
David: Which means to kind of to walk into or to crash into.
Echo: 我撞到门了。(Wǒ zhuàng dào ménle.)
David: I walked into the door.
Echo: 昨天我的车撞坏了。(Zuótiān wǒ de chē zhuàng huàile.)
David: Yesterday I crashed my car. How do we say to crash the car?
Echo: 撞车。(Zhuàngchē.)
David: Okay so that’s kind of upright hitting something at full speed.
Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.)
David: Okay.
Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.)
David: Our next word is to bump.
Echo: 碰。我的胳膊彭疼了。(Pèng. Wǒ de gēbó péng téngle.)
David: I hurt my arm – I bumped my arm and it’s in pain.
Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.)
David: Yeah. So these are different kind of collisions. All right, 撞 (Zhuàng) you are really talking, it’s full speed, it’s a full speed collision.
Echo: 但是“碰”可能是比较轻的。(Dànshì “pèng” kěnéng shì bǐjiào qīng de.)
David: Yeah and it’s usually only a part of your body or a part of something that actually gets hit.
Echo: 对。(Duì.)
David: So in the dialogue, what was the sentence?
Echo: 我撞到门了。(Wǒ zhuàng dào ménle.)
David: So he walked into it at full speed. Now we’ve got a third word here that’s not in the dialogue but that’s really useful too.
Echo: 摔倒。(Shuāi dǎo.)
David: First tone, third tone.
Echo: 摔倒。(Shuāi dǎo.)
David: That means literally to fall over or to slip and to fall down.
Echo: 你小心一点儿,别摔倒了。(Nǐ xiǎoxīn yīdiǎn er, bié shuāi dǎo le.)
David: Be careful, don’t slip. Those are three words for describing accidents. Echo?
Echo: 撞,碰,摔倒。(Zhuàng, pèng, shuāi dǎo.)
David: Pay particular attention to the tone on that last character.
Echo: 倒。(Dào.)
David: That literally means to fall over. So it means to slip and then fall over. Okay Echo, we’ve got one other really, really useful piece of vocab here.
Echo: 别提了。(Biétíle.)
David: Yeah. This literally means don’t mention it, don’t raise it.
Echo: 但是它和英语不一样。(Dànshì tā hé yīngyǔ bù yīyàng.)
David: Yeah it’s totally different than in English because in English, you could say hey, don’t mention it. You mean, don’t tell me about this.
Echo: Hmm don’t touch it.
David: I don’t want to talk about this. You know don’t mention it, don’t go there.
Echo: 但是在中文里是不一样的。(Dànshì zài zhōngwén lǐ shì bù yīyàng de.)
David: Right in Chinese if you say this
Echo: 别提了。(Biétíle.)
David: What you really mean is I do want to talk about it or I am going to tell you about it.
Echo: 我马上就会告诉你发生了什么。(Wǒ mǎshàng jiù huì gàosù nǐ fāshēngle shénme.)
David: Yeah. So you noticed in the dialogue first, our guy says
Echo: 别提了。(Biétíle.)
David: And then his friend to ask someone about it.
Echo: 怎么了?(Zěnmeliǎo?)
David: Right. If he really didn’t want to talk about it, what should he say?
Echo: 别提这件事儿了。(Biétí zhè jiàn shì erle.)
David: Let’s not talk about this thing.
Echo: 别提这件事儿了。(Biétí zhè jiàn shì erle.)
David: Small point, bear it in mind though. And with that, we’re done with our vocab section. On to grammar. It’s grammar time. Our grammar point for today is all about a verb complement we’ve run into before. This is the complement.

Lesson focus

Echo: 到。(Dào.)
David: And we see it in the dialogue in this sentence.
Echo: 我撞到门了。(Wǒ zhuàng dào ménle.)
David: When we’ve run into this before, it’s being of verb meaning to get to or to arrive in.
Echo: 他到北京了吗?(Tā dào běijīngle ma?)
David: Has he arrived in Beijing? In this dialogue though, it’s acting as a verb complement. So we are putting it after a verb and it kind of changes the meaning of the verb. It emphasizes that it’s actually happened.
Echo: 撞到。(Zhuàng dào.)
David: Literally means to kind of crash into. The verb has been achieved.
Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.)
David: Okay you are going to see this all the time with a lot of common verbs.
Echo: 见到。(Jiàn dào.)
David: To have seen.
Echo: 我昨天见到老同学了。(Wǒ zuótiān jiàn dào lǎo tóngxuéle.)
David: Yesterday I saw an old classmate.
Echo: 听到。(Tīng dào.)
David: To have heard.
Echo: 他说的你听到没有。(Tā shuō de nǐ tīng dào méiyǒu.)
David: Did you hear what he said?
Echo: 买到。(Mǎi dào.)
David: To have bought.
Echo: 你买到那本中文书了吗?(Nǐ mǎi dào nà běn zhōngwén shūle ma?)
David: Have you bought that Chinese book?
Echo: 找到。(Zhǎodào.)
David: To have found.
Echo: 他终于找到手机了。(Tā zhōngyú zhǎodào shǒujīle.)
David: He finally found the phone. There is something interesting here. I think the question that most English speakers have, the one I certainly did when I started learning this was, what exactly is the difference between
Echo: 见。(Jiàn.)
David: And
Echo: 见到。(Jiàn dào.)
David: Because they feel pretty close.
Echo: 那我们就听一个句子吧。我昨天去见老同学了。(Nà wǒmen jiù tīng yīgè jùzi ba. Wǒ zuótiān qù jiànlǎo tóngxuéle.)
David: So that’s the sentence. Yesterday I went to see a friend and it’s without the verb complement. Let’s hear it again.
Echo: 我昨天去见老同学了。但是我们不知道这个人有没有见到他的老同学。(Wǒ zuótiān qù jiànlǎo tóngxuéle. Dànshì wǒmen bù zhīdào zhège rén yǒu méiyǒu jiàn dào tā de lǎo tóngxué.)
David: Right. We don’t know if they actually successfully saw each other. You know they went to meet but we don’t know if they actually met.
Echo: 对,这就是“见”和“见到”的区别。(Duì, zhè jiùshì “jiàn” hé “jiàn dào” de qūbié.)
David: Right. So we are using 到 (Dào) to provide emphasis. And the second point is related to tense.
Echo: 对。(Duì.)
David: If you listen to all of the example sentences we gave you, you should notice they are all in the past tense.
Echo: 它们都是过去时。(Tāmen dōu shì guòqù shí.)
David: Echo, let’s hear that again.
Echo: 我昨天见到老同学了。(Wǒ zuótiān jiàn dào lǎo tóngxuéle.)
David: Yesterday I met an old classmate.
Echo: 他说的你听到没有。(Tā shuō de nǐ tīng dào méiyǒu.)
David: Did you hear what he said?
Echo: 你买到那本中文书了吗?(Nǐ mǎi dào nà běn zhōngwén shūle ma?)
David: Did you buy that Chinese book?
Echo: 他终于找到他的手机了。(Tā zhōngyú zhǎodào tā de shǒujīle.)
David: He finally found his phone. All of those sentences are in the past tense. They have to be. Either as a sentence or in one case as a question.
Echo: 他说的你听到没有。(Tā shuō de nǐ tīng dào méiyǒu.)
David: Right. Or a clue to this in the past tense is that closing
Echo: 没有。(Méiyǒu.)
David: Right. And that brings up the final point we want to make which is if you want to use this verb complement, your sentences have to be in the past tense. So if you are negating it, you have to negate it with either
Echo: 没。(Méi.)
David: Or
Echo: 没有。见到,没见到。听到,没听到。买到,没买到。找到,没找到。(Méiyǒu. Jiàn dào, méi jiàn dào. Tīng dào, méi tīng dào. Mǎi dào, méi mǎi dào. Zhǎodào, méi zhǎodào.)

Outro

David: Perfect. And that’s our lesson for today. Before we go Echo, we’ve got videos coming at people right?
Echo: 没错。非常非常好的(Méi cuò. Fēicháng fēicháng hǎo de) Videos.
David: Right if you haven’t seen them yet, we are producing and we are releasing them on YouTube.
Echo: 对。(Duì.)
David: We’ve got videos we’ve taken care of in 西安(Xī'ān), we’ve got some coming up from Hong Kong 四川 (Sìchuān)province. We’ve actually sent people to rural Shandong parts of China where there has never ever been a foreigner before. We are going to show you exactly what it’s like. It’s great stuff. So make sure you stop by YouTube and check that stuff out. Okay.
Echo: 好,那我们今天就到这里吧。(Hǎo, nà wǒmen jīntiān jiù dào zhèlǐ ba.)
David: And with that, our lesson is over. Thanks for listening guys.
Echo: From Beijing, 我是 (Wǒ shì) Echo.
David: I am David and we will see you next week.
Echo: 下次见吧。(Xià cì jiàn ba.)
David: Bye bye.

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