What is the most frequent thing you do in a day? Can you say that in Chinese?

Hi, Emma,

I'm so glad you told us in Chinese!

我也是。Wǒ yě shì .

Me too.

Cho

Team ChineseClass101.com

Go on the computer. 上电脑。

Hi Mike,

Thank you for posting!

You can find the English translation in the Lesson Notes PDF, and read along with the video.

Let us know if you have questions.

Sincerely,

Laura

Team ChineseClass101.com

Hi pippi!

Thank you for your many smileys! :thumbsup: :innocent: :smile:

Have a great day and let us know if you have any questions!

Engla

Team ChineseClass101.com

:smile::smile::smile::smile:

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::wink::smile:

Hi ShellaK,

Thank you very much! Exactly like you said.

Echo

Team ChineseClass101.com

I found 2 problems when teaching my daughter with this video:

1. You don't "make" orange juice. You squeeze orange juice. The correct verb/character should be "挤"

2. The "真地" in "The girl really likes the puppies" should be "真的".

isaac,

You mean "ben3(lai2)", "le5" and "yuan2lai2", right?

To form the past tense, you can use "ben3lai2" and "yuan2lai2" interchangeably, and they both mean originally.

"Le5" is the most common and normal way to form the past tense. It just expresses that you did something.

--Echo

I found this lesson to be confusing and disheartening. How does one know when to use ben - Verb or Verb - Le. And how about this Chuanlain thing, a third way to form past tense. Are there any rules about when to do what?

Thanks.

Hi Dawei,

The word 本 in the sentence is actually short for 本来 meaning originally. So the sentence should be translated as "the staff wanted the donut before (meaning he doesn't want it now)". I have to admit this is a rather strange sentence. I think the purpose here is to show you the difference between different tense. In spoken language, if we want to express such situation we would say 我刚才（本来/原来）想要...来着。This is just a fixed pattern so 来着 can not be explained individually. Hope it makes sense.

Best,

Jane:smile:

Oh, I forgot to ask you about this:

员工本想要面包圈.

Should it be

员工想了要面包圈.

？？

Hi Dawei,

You are right. A lot of the sentences from the these lessons were created with different tenses. However, I wouldn't repeat most of the sentences myself in my conversation. They seem a bit out of the context and sound weird. But as long as you understand the tense conjugation, that's fine.

For your other question about the use of 使，actually here in the sentence the word 使用 is one word meaning to use. So 使 is not a tense indicator like 在.

Hope it helps.

Best

Jane

Oppss.. I see that I mistyped "computer programmer" in the previous comment. :oops:

程序设计员使用了电脑。 translates in the lesson notes as "The programmer used the computer."

In the video: 程序设计员在用电脑。

I understand how the 在 works to make the sentence continuous, but I am not familiar with the use of 使. Could you explain that to me, please?

Lesson 3 repetition

程序设计院使用了电脑。 2 times

Hello, Jane.

In the video, you are correct, the sentence is 员工想要面包圈.

It is in the PDF where the sentence says

员工本想要面包圈。 The office workers wanted the doughnut.

In Lesson 1 it says three times in the PDF

一家人吃了早餐。 3 times

女人刷了牙 2 times

Lesson 2:

父亲回家了 3 times

Lesson 4:

游客等了火车 2 times.

etc. I think perhaps the intent is to go through the various tenses of non-past tense, present progressive, and past tense with the repetition. That is what would be helpful to me as a student to practice these variations on the same general sentence.

Hope this explanation helps.

Best regards,

Dave

Hi Dave,

Glad you like the new picture and video lesson series.

I thought the sentence was 员工想要面包圈.（no 本 in the sentence）

Cheers,

Jane

I really enjoy these video lessons. I noticed that in many of the sample sentences in the PDF file, that some sentences are repeated several times. For example:

员工本想要面包圈。

is repeated three times exactly as written above.

thx

Dave