Learn how to tell people where you are without getting your grammar wrong
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome to chineseclass101. I am David. |
| Echo: 大家好，我是 (Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì) Echo。 |
| David: Yeah we’ve got the beautiful, stunning Echo with us today as well. |
| Echo: 哦，谢谢。(Ó, xièxiè.) |
| David: And series 1, lesson 3 in our elementary set. |
| Echo: 我们的第三课。(Wǒmen de dì sān kè.) |
| David: Yeah. So if you already got some basic Mandarin behind you, this is the right place to be. We are going to get even better. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| David: Stepping forth, we’ve got a dialogue here that takes place between two friends in Beijing. And so they are speaking maybe bit colloquially but this is standard Mandarin. Echo, before we get into the dialogue, we want to remind people something. What is that? |
| Echo: Yes. Comment, comment, comment and comment on the site. |
| David: Yes if you have any questions, if you have any problems, if you have any thoughts of feedback, we want to hear about it. So come to chineseclass101.com, leave us a comment. We are listening and we are looking forward to hearing what you have to say. Let’s get to the dialogue now. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Andy:呃，好久没有见到丁汉了。(ANDY: E, hǎojiǔ méiyǒu jiàn dào Dīng Hàn le.) |
| 田森:他在北京啊。(TIÁN SĒN: Tā zài Běijīng a.) |
| Andy:真的？(ANDY: Zhēn de?) |
| 田森:他在一家公司里做翻译。(TIÁN SĒN: Tā zài yī jiā gōngsī lǐ zuò fānyì.) |
| Andy:啊？他的普通话这么好吗？(ANDY: á？ Tā de pǔtōnghuà zhème hǎo ma?) |
| 田森:咳，他翻译的是法语。(TIÁN SĒN: Hāi, tā fānyì de shì fǎyǔ.) |
| Andy: Hey, I haven't seen Ding Han in a long time. |
| Tian Sen: He's in Beijing. |
| Andy: Really? |
| Tian Sen: He works as a translator in a company. |
| Andy: Huh? His Chinese is this good? |
| Tian Sen: (Sigh) He translates French. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Echo: 好久。(hǎojiǔ.)[natural native speed] |
| David: A long time. |
| Echo: [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 见到。(jiàn dào.) [natural native speed] |
| David: To see. |
| Echo: 见到。(jiàn dào.) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo:见到。 (jiàn dào.) [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 在。(zài.)[natural native speed] |
| David: To be at. |
| Echo: 在。(zài)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo:在。(zài) [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 真的。(zhēn de.) [natural native speed] |
| David: Really. |
| Echo: 真的。(zhēn de.) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 真的。(zhēn de.) [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 家。(jiā.)[natural native speed] |
| David: A measure word for companies. |
| Echo: 家。(jiā.) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 家。(jiā.) [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 公司。(gōngsī.) [natural native speed] |
| David: Company. |
| Echo: 公司。(gōngsī.) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 公司。(gōngsī.) [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 里。(lǐ.)[natural native speed] |
| David: In. |
| Echo: 里。(lǐ.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 里。(lǐ.)[natural native speed] |
| Echo: 翻译。(fānyì.) [natural native speed] |
| David: To translate, translator. |
| Echo: 翻译。(fānyì.) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 翻译。(fānyì.) [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 普通话。(pǔtōnghuà.)[natural native speed] |
| David: Mandarin. |
| Echo: 普通话。(pǔtōnghuà.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 普通话。(pǔtōnghuà.)[natural native speed] |
| Echo: 这么。 (Zhème.)[natural native speed] |
| David: This much. |
| Echo: 这么。 (Zhème.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 这么。 (Zhème.)[natural native speed] |
| David: Some stuff I think we already know. Some of the stuff should be new. Let’s take a look at some of the more difficult pieces here. First is |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Echo: 好久。(hǎojiǔ.) |
| David: This means for a long time and we typically use it as an adverb. |
| Echo: Yes 好久不见。(Hǎojiǔ bùjiàn.) |
| David: Long time no see. What else can we say? |
| Echo: 好久没有你的消息了。(Hǎojiǔ méiyǒu nǐ de xiāoxīle.) |
| David: Haven’t heard about you in a long time or |
| Echo: 我们好久没有在一起吃饭了。(Wǒmen hǎojiǔ méiyǒu zài yīqǐ chīfànle.) |
| David: We haven’t eaten together in a long time. Our next word is a measure word. |
| Echo: 家。(Jiā.) |
| David: We ran into this previously as a noun meaning home or house but here it’s functioning as a measure word and we use it for companies and restaurants and hotels. |
| Echo: 一家公司。(Yījiā gōngsī.) |
| David: A company. |
| Echo: 一家餐厅。(Yījiā cāntīng.) |
| David: A restaurant. |
| Echo: 一家饭店。(Yījiā fàndiàn) |
| David: A hotel. Our third word is |
| Echo: 翻译。(Fānyì.) |
| David: Now in the dialogue, this was a noun. He is working in a company as a translator. |
| Echo: 他在一家公司里做翻译。(Tā zài yījiā gōngsī lǐ zuò fānyì.) |
| David: Yeah. However, this is also useful as a verb, to translate. I am translating a short story. |
| Echo: 我在翻译一本短篇小说。(Wǒ zài fānyì yī běn duǎnpiān xiǎoshuō.) |
| David: How would you say Chinese English translation? |
| Echo: 汉英翻译。(Hàn yīng fānyì.) |
| David: Or English Chinese translation. |
| Echo: 英汉翻译。(Yīnghàn fānyì.) |
| David: Right. Our last vocab point is |
| Echo: 普通。(Pǔtōng.) |
| David: We ran into this as an alternate way of talking about Mandarin. |
| Echo: 普通话。(Pǔtōnghuà.) |
| David: Right. This literally translates as the common tongue. So 普通 (Pǔtōng) means common or universal even. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: 普通人。(Pǔtōng rén.) |
| David: A common person. |
| Echo: 普通朋友。(Pǔtōng péngyǒu.) |
| David: Just an ordinary friend. |
| Echo: 普通员工。(Pǔtōng yuángōng.) |
| David: An ordinary employee. Okay let’s move on to the grammar section. We’ve got some great things to talk about here. It’s grammar time. Our first grammar point is about the proper use of 在。(Zài.) we’ve got two sentences here that use it. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Echo: 他在北京啊。他在一家公司里做翻译。(Tā zài běijīng a. Tā zài yījiā gōngsī lǐ zuò fānyì.) |
| David: Do you notice anything strange about that. You should. In the first sentence, we just used |
| Echo: 在北京。(Zài běijīng.) |
| David: At Beijing. In the second sentence |
| Echo: 在一家公司里。(Zài yījiā gōngsī lǐ.) |
| David: At a company 里。(Lǐ.) |
| Echo: In. |
| David: Yeah it’s a directional compliment and there is a great question here. Why in one sentence do we have to use 里 (Lǐ) and in the other sentence, we don’t? |
| Echo: 对。我们在一般比较大的地方，就不会用里，比如说国家。(Duì. Wǒmen zài yībān bǐjiào dà dì dìfāng, jiù bù huì yòng lǐ, bǐrú shuō guójiā.) |
| David: Right. So with countries or geographic place names, we don’t need to use 里.(Lǐ.) You will just say 在。(Zài.) |
| Echo: 在中国。(Zài zhōngguó.) |
| David: In China. |
| Echo: 在日本。(Zài rìběn.) |
| David: In Japan. |
| Echo: 在美国。(Zài měiguó.) (In USA) |
| David: In Beijing. |
| Echo: 在北京。(Zài běijīng.) |
| David: But when we get to the level of a company, |
| Echo: 在公司里。(Zài gōngsī lǐ.) |
| David: We have to have that directional complement closing it out. |
| Echo: 还有比如说，在家里。(Hái yǒu bǐrú shuō, zài jiālǐ.) |
| David: Yeah in my home. |
| Echo: 在办公室里。(Zài bàngōngshì lǐ.) |
| David: In the office. Okay our second grammar point is about nominalizing subject verb phrases. Don’t be scared by the terminology here. It’s actually describing something that’s really, really simple. |
| Echo: Very simple. In the dialogue, we have 他翻译的是法语。(Tā fānyì de shì fǎyǔ.) |
| David: So we have the subject and then the verb and then 的。 |
| Echo: Subject, verb plus 的。 |
| David: Yes right that which is verbed by the subject. Let’s have some examples. |
| Echo: 他说的是英语。(Tā shuō de shì yīngyǔ.) |
| David: That which he speaks is English. |
| Echo: 你看的是什么书。(Nǐ kàn de shì shénme shū.) |
| David: That which you are looking at is what book. |
| Echo: Yes. 你吃的是什么？(Nǐ chī de shì shénme?) |
| David: What are you eating? |
| Echo: Uhoo. |
| David: We are taking as a verb and we are kind of turning it into a subject. Very, very common in Chinese. |
| Echo: 别忘了的。(Bié wàngle de.) |
| David: Yes don’t forget the 的。(De.) okay and that’s it. In today’s lesson, we’ve covered a lot of really interesting vocab and we’ve highlighted |
| Echo: 好久，家，翻译，普通。(Hǎojiǔ, jiā, fānyì, pǔtōng.) |
| David: In our grammar section, we identified two common patterns for you. |
| Echo: 第一个是，在。(Dì yī gè shì, zài.) |
| David: And when we use it with |
| Echo: 里。(Lǐ.) |
| David: Yeah and when we don’t use it and if it’s a country name or a proper place name, we don’t need to use it. If it’s not, you need to have it there. And the second thing we talked about was a very quick example of how we nominalized subject verb phrases. |
| Echo: 别忘了放“的”。(Bié wàngle fàng “de”.) |
| David: Yeah don’t forget to add that to |
| Echo: The magic card. |
Outro |
| David: Yes. Before you go, we want to remind you, if you are not a premium subscriber, what are you waiting for? |
| Echo: Yes. |
| David: Taking a look at the PDF transcripts, getting the ID3 annotated MP3s, it’s going to help you study faster, it’s going to help you study smarter. Come to the site and think about signing up. |
| Echo: 而且如果你们有任何问题，或者任何建议，别忘了来我们网站给我们留言。(Érqiě rúguǒ nǐmen yǒu rènhé wèntí, huòzhě rènhé jiànyì, bié wàngle lái wǒmen wǎngzhàn gěi wǒmen liúyán.) |
| David: Yeah and we’ve got people who are going to answer any questions that you need. From Beijing, I am David. |
| Echo: 我是 (Wǒ shì) Echo。 |
| David: And we will see you soon. |
| Echo: 好好学习，天天向上。(Hǎo hào xuéxí, tiāntiān xiàngshàng.) |
| David: Okay. |
| Echo: 回头见。(Huítóu jiàn.) |
| David: Bye bye. |
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Comments
HideThere are lots of opportunities in the Chinese-English translation space, but sometimes you have to hustle a bit to get your first clients. Do you have any experience doing translation professionally yet? Are you interested?
你好 robert groulx,
You are very welcome. 😇
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
Good luck with your language studies.
Kind regards,
雷文特
Team ChineseClass101.com
thanks for the lesson
my favorite phrase is 你吃的是什么？
robert
Hello, alwingate,
Yes, we miss him.
Do you also miss him, too?
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hello, alwingate,
Thank you for your sharing.
It must be helpful.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hello, Delmar Gray,
Thank you for your posting.
We have pinyin for Dialogue section. You can check the pinyin for all the sentences.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hello, Albert Wingate,
Thank you for all of your comments.
If you have any question, please let us know.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
我想有人想念安东尼。
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/zhongwen-chinese-english/kkmlkkjojmombglmlpbpapmhcaljjkde/related?hl=en
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/zhongwen-chinese-english/kkmlkkjojmombglmlpbpapmhcaljjkde/related?hl=en
The title of the extension is Zhongwen. I just downloaded it from the URL above. Pass your curser over a Chinese character and you will get pinyin and some meanings of the character. Sounds like it might be helpful for your situation. However, it is just my opinion and I could be wrong.
@Delmar Gray
Since I only hear crickets, let me say this. Learning characters is difficult. Why? My ability to listen and speak first makes my speech and listening abilities which surpass my ability to read or write in Chinese. There really is no focused way of learning to read or right Chinese characters here other than the Hanzi Close Up in the Premium subscription. I don't use them. It is too expensive to print each one out. Learning to read characters can take useful approaches like collecting the characters in groups with syllables in common. This does two things for me. It gives me a hint. And it gives me meaningful recognition. I understand that the Chinese language was based on some extent with pictures. So a tree, looked like a tree, but might have a related meaning. For example, 人 ren2 kind of looks like a person. And great or big looks like a man stretching his arms saying "This big". Looks like da = 大 and maybe you can imagine a person holding out his arms in indicating that something was this long. Now, maybe he was exaggerating. I know what you are thinking. It couldn't be that big or long. But certainly some fish are indeed that long. Barracuda for example. A solution. Take a separate course; one designed to teach reading of characters. Or write simple sentences. Translate as you can. (Google translate) Then set your computer to flip from your native language to Simplified Chinese. Sorry for running on. Good luck. Also, someone mentioned that Google has a software extension for chrome which will translate Chinese characters into both pinyin and your native language. Downside? You have to use Google Chrome.
I studied Chinese as a student in Taiwan in 1970-71. I studied using pinyin and never really studied Chinese characters.
It appears that as I progress in these lessons that there is less pinyin and more dependent on reading characters. I know there is a big advantage to knowing the characters but at this point in my life I am not motivated to spend that much effort. Can I get the dialogues in pin yin?
Delmar
One of the things that I like about CC101 is the sound of men's voices. There is a noticeable difference in their tone, modulation, rhythm and cadence. Also, there is one lady who reads so well. She is easy to listen to. Others, use speed reading techniques which I think is used to sharpen your wits and pay attention. Also, the terror of tones melt away with speed reading because too much time is not spent on thinking: did I get every tone right. I think that learning tones ought to be more intuitive. After all people born in China learned by listening to conversation and picked up the tones from hearing a normal conversation. Reading is not conversing. And really dialogues see to mimic a conversation. And some of the dialogues are great. But do you think that dialogues lack authenticity at times? Another thing I do like about CC101 is the abundance content. After all, without content there would be nothing to learn. But how many of us who have learned Chinese from scratch, living in a land foreign to China, can carry on a meaning conversation with someone? Just some random thoughts about learning and the strengths and weaknesses of systems of learning.
I will say one more thing then shut up!
The word "common" is portrayed in this lessons as "lower" or "base." An example is the sentence from my memory: The Southerners don't meet the standard of Mandarin Chinese very well." That is as I remember it. It could be wrong. This is a criticism. And criticism is invited. But what makes the standard a standard? Who decides? And about common. There are times when common is too common as in "common sense." There is also the idea: common means held jointly. "We hold these truths to be self evident; all men and women are created equal." This is a common value. It was held jointly by the writers' of our Constitution - USA. This common value, held by most is a high and virtuous statement of a society based on fairness making not man "common."
@Daphane:
Your situation is very complex. Yet, let me say though that there are people who have projects and need a stamp of approval by their institutions; as in my case an English teacher. I had many opportunities to translate.
While teaching in Taiwan, I had several opportunities to do translation work. I told the people who requested the help that I was not qualified to be a translator. I could however take an English sentence written by a Taiwanese person and fix the puzzle oft times. So, I did a clean up job sometimes with the stipulation that I would use the English provided by the writer and make the sentence intelligible. That is my experience. Most jobs I turned down.
A translator has an important job. He is bridging a gap for someone else. However, as I look at translations from many sources I see the translator using his judgement about what should be said. He cleans it up. He also gets creative at times. This is what happens at an extreme in loose translations.This is as opposed to a more literal language conversion. There are so many polarities in life. This is a small one.
Hi, Daphane,
Thank you for your posting.
I think it is good for you to write something to us in Chinese.
Even there are some mistakes, we can correct them for you.
Practice is very important, isn't it?
Please feel free to ask.:smile:
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
I'm interested to do some translation work. I can speak fine, but reading and writing is a struggle since I haven't used chinese in years.
Hello 杰米,
Thank you for posting.
Try to search in our grammar bank. :thumbsup:
I've found the following results:
https://www.chineseclass101.com/learningcenter/reference/grammar/36&preview
https://www.chineseclass101.com/learningcenter/reference/grammar/136&preview
https://www.chineseclass101.com/learningcenter/reference/grammar/135&preview
I hope it helps.
Sincerely,
Lena
Team ChineseClass101.com
杰米，你好，
能: 能力,才干
会：理解,懂得怎样做 或 有能力做
可以：同意,许可,认同或可能
例如，我（）跳舞。
我能跳舞。I can dance./ I know how to dance.
我会跳舞。I have the skill of dancing./ I am good at dance.
我可以跳舞。I can dance./ I am allowed to dance./ If no one dance, I will.(如果没人跳舞的话，我可以跳。)
Q: 你能跳舞吗？
A: 我能。/我可以。
Q: 你会跳舞吗？
A: 我会。
Q: 你可以跳舞吗？（Maybe you are hurt in a foot.）
A: 我可以。(I don't feel so painful so I can dance.)
I can give you some example sentences. And for your question whether we have a lesson about this, we will be back to you later.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
你好！
我有一个不关于这节课的问题。
我不会区分什么时候我需要用【可以，】【能，】和【会】
有没有一节课关于这个话题吗？
Hi, Mia,
在地铁里 is correct.
It means "into the train".
But in other case, you can see two people fighting above the train in some movies, it should be "在地铁上".
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com