14 Responses to “CLO_020: How long have you been here?”

1. Kitrano Says:
   January 21st, 2007 at 3:27 pm

   You have it spelled duo when it should be dou.

2. admin Says:
   January 21st, 2007 at 7:15 pm

   Hmmn… my dictionary lists the Pinyin for the character 多 as duō. Does your dictionary say otherwise?

3. Andrea Says:
   January 23rd, 2007 at 5:09 pm

   No, it should definitely be duo, as in duojiu, “how long”. The problem is Adam is pronouncing is as “dou” instead of “duo”, which leads to confusion. The “duo” should have a distinct “dw” as the initial portion of the word. Kirin doesn’t pronounce it very distinctly, but she is pronouncing it correctly.

4. Andrea Says:
   January 23rd, 2007 at 5:11 pm

   Oops, sorry, meant to say “pronouncing it” instead of “pronouncing is”.

5. admin Says:
   January 23rd, 2007 at 6:07 pm

   Thanks for the comments. When in doubt, always stick to how the native speakers pronounce it, as opposed to the lowly student, me!

6. Mark Piscopo Says:
   November 11th, 2007 at 1:54 pm

   The PDF’s you added are great! I’m really happy to see them as I was retyping each lesson so I could study on paper in Simplified Chinese. I noticed that you had some lessons available in a Complete Simplified Transcript PDF. Will this eventually be available for all the lessons?

7. Adam Says:
   November 11th, 2007 at 5:15 pm

   Hi Mark, we only began adding Chinese characters for the Complete transcripts from lessons 116 onwards, since the amount of Chinese within the lesson rises significantly from level 3 onwards. Perhaps at some point we can rewrite the older lessons with Chinese characters too though.

8. Frank Thieme Says:
   December 9th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

   Just a small bug - in the PDF the answers to the review questions aren’t the matching answers to the questions..

9. Johan Hasselgren Says:
   May 13th, 2008 at 12:45 pm

   Hi - why is the word ji placed after Xingqi in: “Nǐde Shēngrì Shì Zài Xīngqī Jǐ ” but before in “ji dian”?

10. Adam Says:
    May 13th, 2008 at 10:10 pm

    Hi Johan,

    Great question! It makes more sense when you look at the question and answers together.
    The question word (in this case Jǐ) is placed where the answer is needed. So for example:

    Xiànzài jǐ diǎn? (What time is it now?)
    Xiànzài liù diǎn. (It’s 6 o’ clock now)

    Míngtiān shì xīngqǐ jǐ? (What day is tomorrow?)
    Míngtiān shì xīngqǐ èr. (Tomorrow is Tuesday)

    This format also works with other question words (shénme, shéi, zěnme, nǎli etc.)

11. Hann Wang Says:
    May 8th, 2010 at 7:17 am

    Hi Adam,

    For the phrase “How many years have you been in Taiwan?” can it also be “Ni ji nian zai taiwan le” instead of “ni zai Taiwan ji nian le”? I just remember in a prior lesson that dates and time usually come at the beginning of a sentence.

    Thanks,

    Hann

12. Adam Says:
    May 10th, 2010 at 3:00 am

    Hi Hann,

    There is a difference between expressing a period of time and a specific instance of time. If it’s a specific instance of time (yesterday, tomorrow, last year etc.) then you’re right that it goes in the front. However periods of time (such as 2 years, 3 weeks etc.) go at the end. Compare the following:

    Wo zai Taiwan (I am in Taiwan).
    Wo qunian zai Taiwan le (I was in Taiwan last year).
    Wo zai Taiwan liang nian le (I’ve been in Taiwan for two years).
    Ni zai Taiwan ji nian le (How long have you been in Taiwan)?

    Note how when asking a question, you phrase it in a way where the question words can be substituted by the answer.

    Ni zai Taiwan gongzuo ji nian le (How long have you been working in Taiwan)?
    Wo zai Taiwan gongzuo san nian le (I’ve been working in Taiwan for 3 years).

    Here are some more examples to show you the placement of instances of time, periods of time, locations and actions.

    Wo zuofan. (I cook)
    Wo zai jiali zuofan. (I cook at home.)
    Wo zuotian zuofan le. (I cooked yesterday.)
    Wo zuotian zai jiali zuofan le. (I cooked at home yesterday.)
    Wo zai jiali zuofan liangge xingqi le (I’ve been cooking at home for two weeks).

    Hope that helps!

13. Hironori Sakai Says:
    August 2nd, 2010 at 11:09 am

    您好,

    I would like to ask you about the second question in the Sentence Builder. According to the right answer, ” What day is your birthday on? ” is translated as “你的生日是在星期幾？”. Why do we put 在 after 是?

    對不起，我英文說得不好。

    thanks.

14. Adam Says:
    August 3rd, 2010 at 2:30 am

    Hi Hironori,

    The 在 in this case can be though of as “in” and is optional. So you could also ask it without:
    你的生日是星期幾？

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