CLO_014: Long time no see!
Listen to this lesson, to learn what the following means:
Dialogue: Numbers
A: Hao3 jiu3 bu2 jian4.
A: Ni3 jin1tian1 you3 kong4 ma?
A: Wo3 yao4 qu4 chi1fan4.
B: Wo3 xian4zai4 hen3 mang2.
B: Ming2tian1 ke3yi3 ma?
Dialogue: Tones
A: Hǎo jiǔ bú jiàn.
A: Nǐ jīntiān yǒu kòng ma?
A: Wǒ yào qù chīfàn.
B: Wǒ xiànzài hěn máng.
B: Míngtiān kěyǐ ma?
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As the review questions become harder and we begin to build longer sentences, it would be great to hear Adam or Kirin speak the answers too, as well as being able to roll your mouse over.
Even when I get the answers right, I’m not always sure I’m saying them aloud perfectly. Just an idea! I love these lessons very much
Good idea Naz. I’m looking to tweak the format for level 2 (lesson 61 on) so maybe I’ll consider this option.
Thank you so much for doing these lessons with downloadble mp3’s. My Taiwan 12mp camera doesn’t play WMA’s or other types of audio formats. I know I’ll become a premium member soon because you have really helped me a lot by bringing my confidence up to realize that I can really learn another languguage so I would like to express my appreciation. I wish there was a Korean version of this website & audio format.
Why can’t I download lesson 14. When I try, it goes right to streaming through Quicktime. What do you think? What am I doing wrong?
Jeff.
Hi Jeff,
Instead of left clicking on the Download link, right click on it (Control click on Mac) and choose where on your computer you want to download it to.
Hi Adam,
Sorry for all the questions but I’m a bit confused again! You mentioned in the Notes section that the word yào can have dual meanings of “to want” and “going to”.
What confuses me though is how is the listener supposed to be able to distinguish those meanings? “I want to go eat” and “I am going to go eat” have very different meanings (at least in English they do).
Likewise, in the review exercises the phrase “I want to go to China in September” and “I am going to China in September” imply very different things also.
The first usually implies that you want to do something but might not be able to or maybe you are awaiting confirmation whereas the second phrase is more definite and more specific.
So given the two different meanings of these phrases, how is the listener supposed to distinguish whether the speaker wants to go eat versus whether they are already on the way to go eat? Or whether they want to go China or already have confirmation that htey are going?
Hope this makes sense!
Thanks,
Hann
Hi Hann,
Chinese is a lot more context sensitive than English is. Many times you have to derive the meaning from context or ask specifically where it matters. It’s similar to how “ta” can refer to a man or a woman when spoken. You will find a lot of cases where English has 3 or 4 different words with different use cases, that are all combined into one in Chinese.
These are good questions to ask though, so keep them coming!
Hi Adam,
Okay everything’s starting to make a lot more sense now but I’m sure I’ll have more questions in the future
Hann
Hello Adam, I have been told that ending a sentence with “le” implies that something is going to happen soon, so if “yao” is in the sentence it is more likely to mean “going to” rather than “want”.
However I know this is not always the case….
Hi John,
The “le” is used to emphasize a change in situation. Compare the following:
1a. Wǒ yào qù chīfàn (I want to go eat).
1b. Wǒ yào qù chīfàn (I am going to eat).
2a. Wǒ yào qù chīfàn le (I want to go eat now, whereas before I didn’t).
2b. Wǒ yào qù chīfàn le (I am going to eat now, whereas before I wasn’t).
3a. Wǒ bú yào qù chīfàn (I don’t want to go eat).
3b. Wǒ bú yào qù chīfàn (I am not going to eat).
4a. Wǒ bú yào qù chīfàn le (I don’t want to go eat anymore).
4b. Wǒ bú yào qù chīfàn le (I am not going to eat anymore).
Obviously there has to be some context involved to distinguish which meaning above is implied.
Greetings from Argentina!
First of All i would like to say that i have made massive progress on Chinese thanks to your webpage. Xie xie ni. Having said that, i think it would be a good idea to have some characters like the simplified chinese characters within each lesson so as to start recognizing each word and gradually pass from pinyin to Chinese itself. Or is this comment off topic and this i have mentioned is a premium subscriber feature?
In that case… Any book u or this staff would recommend to learn Chinese ?
Hi Ignacio,
Thank you for your comment! The pinyin characters are listed for free, while the characters (simplified and traditional) are part of the premium resources. You get stroke order animated diagrams for each new character in each lesson, and a PDF sheet to help you practice writing them. There are also flashcard tools and typing exercises to help you learn characters. Here’s a sample: http://www.newclo.com/demo/all.html
Hi Adam. There seems to be a problem with the exercises on the notes page of this lesson. The answers of all but one question are shown in pinyin instead of English. Can you correct that?
Hello,
Could you please specify: in the audio/transcript it says that many Chinese verbs don’t make any sense unless they have an object before them…like in chi fan (no accents, sorry), do you mean that many Chinese verbs don’t make any sense unless they have an object immediately after them?
Thanks,
Chris
Hi Chris,
In Chinese, using some of these verbs (not all of them) without an object sounds incomplete - they would understand what you meant, but it’s not the proper usage.
So you can’t just say I want to eat, or I want to drink - you need to specify what it is you want to eat or drink (or put a placeholder object like food or drink in front of them).
Hope that helps!