10 Responses to “CLO_089: You seem happy today”

1. Salvador Venegas Says:
   April 18th, 2007 at 10:02 am

   Hi Adam,

   I usually download the main dialog by the two native speakers. This time, though, there wasn’t a link. Could you fix this, please. (Lesson 89)

2. Adam Says:
   April 18th, 2007 at 11:48 am

   Hi Salvador,

   The individual dialogues can be manually downloaded or automatically subscribed to from www.chinesemanual.com or by clicking the “Premium feed” above. Hope that’s okay.

   Regards,

   -Adam

3. Bo Hägerås Says:
   April 26th, 2007 at 2:44 pm

   Hello!
   Perhaps a little late, but i have a question regarding this sentence:Wǒ xiǎng nǐ huì pái hěn cháng shíjiān de duì.
   It is about the ” de”.
   If the sentence had been: “I believe that you will have to wait for a ling time”, it would have translated to ” Wo xiang ni hui deng hen chang de shijian” i believe.
   Now, why is there no “de” after the “chang” in the original sentence, and why place a “de” after “shijian” and before the second half of the “paidui”??
   Is it the “same” de that has moved? Or is this “de” referring the shijian to the verb dui?
   Enlighten me!

   Bo

4. Adam Says:
   April 27th, 2007 at 2:18 am

   Hi Bo, it’s never too late to ask questions!

   Since Chinese likes to be efficient, if there are multiple “de”s required in a sequence the first ones are usually omitted. So in this example, if you only wanted to say “a long time” you could say “hěn cháng de shíjiān” However here we want to say “line up for a long time” The first de connects the “long” to the “time” while the second connects the “long time” to the “lining up.” So rather than saying “pái hěn cháng de shíjiān de duì” the first de is omitted.

   A simpler example:
   My friend = Wǒde péngyǒu
   My friend’s friend = Wǒ péngyǒude péngyǒu (the first de is removed)

   Does this help?

5. Bo Hägerås Says:
   April 27th, 2007 at 8:57 am

   Thanks!
   Yes it helps.
   Bo

6. Daniel Tynan Says:
   October 23rd, 2007 at 12:38 am

   In this sentence: Wǒ xiǎng nǐ huì pái hěn cháng shíjiān de duì. I understand that “pái duì” means to stand in line. .. but why are the two characters seperated in this sentence? It causes confusion. . . at least when written in Pinyin because I will think that the “duì” at the end means “correct”.

7. Adam Says:
   October 24th, 2007 at 11:18 pm

   Hi Daniel,

   Good question. In Chinese there are many verb-object forms such as “pái duì”, “chīfàn” etc. The “pái” is the verb (to line up) while the “duì” is the object (group). Similarly, you could say “chī yíge xiǎoshī de fàn” (eat lunch for an hour).

   As far as pinyin goes, you are right that it is easy to mix up which is why context is important. Obviously this problem doesn’t occur as often with Chinese characters since there would be separate characters for the different types of “duì.” While pinyin is very useful as a tool to help learn Chinese it won’t replace Chinese characters for this reason. We encourage users to take a look at the Chinese characters and try picking out the more common ones to help learn reading.

8. Manuela Balzer Says:
   January 28th, 2008 at 1:01 pm

   Hi Adam,

   Could you please tell me what’s the difference between hui and yao when it refers to the future? Sorry if I should have missed a previous explanation.

   Thanks, Manuela.

9. Adam Says:
   January 29th, 2008 at 12:40 am

   Hi Manuela,

   Hui is equivalent to “will” while yao is more like “going to.” So “Wo hui qu” can be translated as “I will go” while “Wo yao qu” can be “I am going.” Hope that helps!

10. Manuela Balzer Says:
    January 29th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

    Hi Adam,

    Yes, it helps, even as my mothertongue is German (that is Swiss-German) and not English.
    Thanks.

    Manuela

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website