CLO_112: The air conditioner is broken!
Dialogue: Numbers
A: Zhe4li3 hao3 re4. Ni3 ke3yi3 ba3 leng3qi4 da3kai1 ma?
B: Qi1shi2 leng3qi4 huai4diao4 le, suo3yi3 wo3men zhi3 neng2 yong4 dian4feng1shan4.
A: Xian4zai4 hao3 re4. Ni3 ju1ran2 mei2you3 leng3qi4!
B: Zhi1qian2 jue2de bu4 shu1fu. Xian4zai4 bi3jiao4 neng2 shi4ying4 le.
Dialogue: Tones
A: Zhèlǐ hǎo rè. Nǐ kěyǐ bǎ lěngqì dǎkāi ma?
B: Qīshí lěngqì huàidiào le, suǒyǐ wǒmen zhǐ néng yòng diànfēngshàn.
A: Xiànzài hǎo rè. Nǐ jūrán méiyǒu lěngqì!
B: Zhīqián juéde bù shūfu. Xiànzài bǐjiào néng shìyìng le.
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PDF Notes: 
June 15th, 2007 at 8:22 am
It may seem like Raphael is purposely trying to speak as fast as he can while introducing the different parts of the lesson. The truth is, the normal speed of Chinese is quite fast. I thought I’d experiment with getting him to say those lines at normal speed just to get you used to this concept.
June 15th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
I agree with you that after over 100 lessons, it’s time to start getting adjusted to the real speed of speech. I have to confess that prior to this lesson, I thought that Rafael either suffered from cerebral palsy, or he was practicing to be a gangster, based on the way he spoke in that mono-syllable drawl. Now I realize that he’s actually a good speaker. I think that at this point, words should be spoken as whole words, and sentences should be spoken as sentences. To continue the baby speech approach is to infantilize and retard one’s growth. The progressive approach has gotten me this far. Keep up the good work!
August 17th, 2007 at 10:55 am
I agree that we (myself included) are going to have to come to terms with a normal rate of speech and that it’s time for us to be treated less like babies and more like, errr, toddlers? That being said, there was a HUGE jump in this lessons in terms of rate of speech, use of confusing L sound for R, and a large amount of new vocabulary. It was shocker to me and I’ve had to spend a lot more time on this lesson than others. I also noticed that the lessons following this one, while faster than some previous ones, seem a bit slower than this one and perhaps more appropriate at this point in the progression. My brain can handle the quick rate only when I already know most of the vocab. Thanks for keeping us on our toes and giving us all a wake-up call.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:57 am
I can’t find huai4diao4 (although it seems intuitive and to make perfect sense) in any dictionaries… Is this more common in Taiwan?
August 17th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
You’re right - you’re more likely to hear “huai4 le” in other parts.
August 18th, 2007 at 12:47 am
There is a delicate balance required to constantly increase the difficulty of each level, while still keeping it manageable. There will be constant tweaks required to achieve this (I won’t always get it right the first time). It’s your feedback that helps me achieve this balance, so do continue to give me comments like this, as they help me manage the direction of this course.
August 19th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Bryan, actually, I agree with you. I find it helpful to go over the vocabulary of the new words in advance of seriously trying to understand the dialogue. You can do that easily enough by reviewing the new words in the Vocabulary Transcript or in the Word Bank with a search by lesson number. Of course, you can also follow along with the Complete Transcript, but I save that for my third listen to the podcast.
Even after I know the meaning of all the individual words, getting at the meaning of the sentence as a whole still exercises my “guessing at the meaning” intuition muscles because the sentence structure remains a huge mystery to me. In fact, as the sentences become more complex, I find that understanding sentences in terms of their structure, word order, and word choice is the greater challenge.
btw – you ask a lot of good questions, and I’m learning as well from those and Adam’s answers.
Luobot
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Thanks for the ideas, Luobot. I think we’re in the same boat. Although I still have lots of vocabulary to learn, it is the word order and usages of a familiar words in slightly different unexpected ways that can throw me. I think I am going to have to accept that some things will not make sense until I’ve seen many, many examples of usage over time. I’m going to have to trust that by continuing to fill my head with more complex sentences, my brain will eventually make sense of the patterns intuitively. For now, maybe we just need to have faith and “Use The Force”.
October 13th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I took Luobot’s suggestion of starting with the vocabulary section, and then I remembered the problem that Adam and I spoke about earlier this summer. When I access any of the Vocabulary pages for any lessons, my computer (PowerBook G4) totally locks up. It doesn’t matter what page I’m coming from, the Vocab page loads but then locks. Any suggestions? I’ve been avoiding this valuable resource!
Thanks,
Judy
October 13th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Hi Judith,
There are 3 components to the Vocabulary page, 2 of which can be accessed elsewhere.
1. The individual lines of the dialogue and audio playback can also be accessed in the Word Bank. You can search by lesson number.
2. The dialogue summaries and playback for lessons are also available on www.ChineseManual.com or available for bulk download at www.chineselearnonline.com/downloads
3. The only feature you would be missing then is the Test Your Pronunciation tool.
Hope that helps! I haven’t heard of this problem from anyone else, so if others out there have advice, do share!
October 15th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Thanks Adam. I re-installed Java and now I can access the vocab pages, but the flashcard page is totally blank. Perhaps I am destined to be only partially involved here. LOL.
December 7th, 2007 at 1:49 am
Ａ： 这 里 好 热 ．你 可 以 把 冷 气 打 开 吗？
Ｂ： 齐 时 冷 气 坏 掉 了 所 以 我 们 要 用 电 风 善．
Ａ： 现 在 好 热 ．你 据 然 没 有 冷 汽．
Ｂ： 知 前 觉 的 不 抒 服 ． 现 在 比 叫 是 样 了．
Ｉ ｔｒｙ ｔｏ ｗｒｉｔｅ Ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ ｌａｎｇｕａｇｅ ｉｎ ｍｙ ｂｏｏｋ． Ｂｕｔ Ｉ ｄｏｎ＇ｔ ｓｕｒｅ ｉｎ ｍｙ ｗｏｒｄｓ．
December 7th, 2007 at 1:57 am
Hello Orapin,
齐时 should be 其实
电风善 should be 电风扇
据然没有冷汽 should be 居然没有冷气
知前觉的不抒服 should be 之前觉得不舒服, while 现在比叫是样了 should be 现在比较适应了.
December 17th, 2007 at 12:42 am
I found huai4diao4 in the Adsotrans dictionary (www.adsotrans.com), defined as “to crash.” It appears this site only accepts entry in characters and not pinyin though. Anyway, I thought I would add another dictionary to your list. I guess Bryan probably won’t see this, but oh well.
July 6th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Hi Adam,
you say that the last sentence means” right now is more comfortable/suitable”, but what about the “le” particle, which indicates past tense?? Why is it required in this context where it is present tense?
July 6th, 2008 at 3:37 am
Hi Niels,
In this case the le refers to a “change in situation”. The speaker was uncomfortable before but now the situation has changed and he is more comfortable.
Compare the following:
Wǒ xiànzài hěn gāoxìng.
Wǒ xiànzài hěn gāoxìng le.
They both mean “I’m happy now” but the second one suggests that the speaker wasn’t happy before, but now he is.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:40 am
Hi all!
Raphael: Yǐqián 以前 - In the past / before .
Adam: which meant “Before” or “in the past.” Here he’s using
Raphael: Zhīqián 之前 - In the recent past .
Adam: which also means “in the past” but a more recent past.
Could you please make one or two example that clarify how 之前 and 以前 transport slighly different meaning (e.g., slight difference in expressed time of actions)?
For example what about 我们吃午饭之前 我们吃午饭以前 ?
But maybe this is not a good example…
September 30th, 2008 at 6:50 am
Hi Sven,
Here are some examples that will hopefully make things more clear.
在我们吃饭之前，妈妈都会叫我们先去把手洗一洗。
(Just before eating, mother asked us to wash our hands).
以前我们要吃饭的时候，妈妈都会叫我们先去把手洗一洗。
(In the past when we were going to eat, mother would first ask us to wash our hands).
冷气坏掉之前，我们每天中午都会把冷气打开。
(Before our air conditioner broke down, we would turn on our air conditioner every afternoon).
以前冷气坏掉的时候，我们都是用电风扇。
(In the past when our air conditioner broke down, we would use a fan).
Let us know if that helps or not!
September 30th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Luise, 你好！
非常感谢你回答地这么快的！
我觉得我现在明白了一点。
(I hope, the above is not full of mistakes!
)
谢谢啊！
史斯文
September 30th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
没问题！有问题的话，可以继续问我 =)
November 28th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I believe that the tone for “fu” in the phrase below should be toneless (or the 5th tone)
and not the 2nd tone.Zhīqián juéde bù shūfú. (shu1fu5)
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Hi Luqman, you’re right - we’ve since fixed it, thanks!
May 14th, 2012 at 2:22 am
hello adam,
the usual term for ‘air conditioner’ in mainland china is 空调 (kong tiao) so i assume 冷气 is the taiwan common expression litterally meaning ‘cold air’
May 14th, 2012 at 6:54 pm
Hi Wang Zi,
Yes you are correct with both points. Thanks!