Learn about the special Chinese dish called hot pot, all the while teaching you about frequency
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome to chineseclass101.com. I am David. |
| Echo: Hi! 大家好，我是(Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì)Echo. |
| David: And here we are with absolute beginner season 2, lesson 19. |
| Echo: The hot pot dinner. |
| David: Echo this is going to be a good lesson for you. |
| Echo: Absolutely. |
| David: Yeah Echo is a big fan of hot pot. |
| Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér.) |
| David: And not Sichuan hot pot neither. |
| Echo: Yes Mongolian Hot Pot. |
| David: Umm any way. We’ve got a dialogue which is between two co-workers. And they are talking about what they ate for dinner. So we are going to get you to that dialogue in a second. Before we do, we want to remind you, we’ve got a great one on one tutoring service at chineseclass101.com. If you are interested, we also give people a free trial. Send us an email at contactus@chineseclass101.com and we will set you up for 20-minute free trial. |
| Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér.) |
| David: Without though, let’s get to the dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A: 昨天你吃什么了？(Zuótiān nǐ chī shénme le?) |
| B: 我吃火锅了。(Wǒ chī huǒguō le.) |
| A: 很贵吗？(Hěn guì ma?) |
| B: 对。 我一年吃一次。(Duì. Wǒ yìnián chī yícì.) |
| David: One more time, a bit slower. |
| A: 昨天你吃什么了？(Zuótiān nǐ chī shénme le?) |
| B: 我吃火锅了。(Wǒ chī huǒguō le.) |
| A: 很贵吗？(Hěn guì ma?) |
| B: 对。 我一年吃一次。(Duì. Wǒ yìnián chī yícì.) |
| David: And now, with the English translation. |
| A: 昨天你吃什么了？(Zuótiān nǐ chī shénme le?) |
| A: What did you eat yesterday? |
| B: 我吃火锅了。(Wǒ chī huǒguō le.) |
| B: I ate hot pot. |
| A: 很贵吗？(Hěn guì ma?) |
| A: Was it expensive? |
| B: 对。 我一年吃一次。(Duì. Wǒ yìnián chī yícì.) |
| B: Yes. I can only eat it once a year. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: This would be a tragedy for Echo. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| David: Echo, you are, every two weeks at least, I must have hot pot. |
| Echo: Exactly. |
| David: Yeah and always – it always 小肥羊(Xiǎoféiyáng) the Mongolian Hot Pot chain, which is really, really good actually. Anyway, our vocab section in this lesson is all about food. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| David: Okay Hot Pot fast-food, western food. So let’s get to it right away. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| David: And now the vocab section. |
| Echo: 火锅。(Huǒguō)[natural native speed] |
| David: Hot pot. |
| Echo: 火锅。(Huǒguō)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 火锅。(Huǒguō)[natural native speed] |
| Echo: 快餐。(Kuàicān.)[natural native speed] |
| David: Fast food. |
| Echo: 快餐。(Kuàicān.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 中餐。(Zhōngcān.)[natural native speed] |
| David: Chinese food. |
| Echo: 中餐。(Zhōngcān.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 中餐。(Zhōngcān.)[natural native speed] |
| Echo: 西餐。(Xīcān.)[natural native speed] |
| David: Western food. |
| Echo: 西餐。(Xīcān.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 西餐。(Xīcān.)[natural native speed] |
| Echo: 料理。(Liàolǐ.)[natural native speed] |
| David: Cuisine. |
| Echo: 料理。(Liàolǐ.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 料理。(Liàolǐ.)[natural native speed] |
| Echo: 次。(Cì.)[natural native speed] |
| David: Times. |
| Echo: 次。(Cì.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 次。(Cì)[natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of these words and phrases. Our first word today is |
| Echo: 火锅。(Huǒguō.) |
| David: Hot pot. |
| Echo: 火锅。(Huǒguō.) |
| David: And this word literally breaks down into fire |
| Echo: 火。(Huǒ.) |
| David: Pot. |
| Echo: 锅。(Guō.) |
| David: And if you haven’t had hot pot yet, you are missing out. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: When you come to Beijing…. |
| Echo: You are missing very big and important part of your life. |
| David: Of Echo’s life. It’s basically a big pot of broth that is heated. In Beijing, you can get them heated traditionally with cold in the middle and then broth on the other side. The only downside to hot pot is that sometimes hot pot is too expensive. |
| Echo: 火锅太贵了。(Huǒguō tài guìle.) |
| David: You will hear people complaining that hot pot is too expensive. |
| Echo: 火锅太贵了。(Huǒguō tài guìle.) |
| David: Our next word is |
| Echo: 快餐。(Kuàicān.) |
| David: Fast food. |
| Echo: 快餐。(Kuàicān.) |
| David: Which is literally quick. |
| Echo: 快。(Kuài.) |
| David: And then meal, dish, food. |
| Echo: 餐。(Cān.) |
| David: Fast food. |
| Echo: 快餐。(Kuàicān.) |
| David: And the problem with fast food of course is that fast food is not healthy. |
| Echo: 快餐不健康。(Kuàicān bùjiànkāng.) |
| David: Fast food isn’t healthy. |
| Echo: 快餐不健康。(Kuàicān bùjiànkāng.) |
| David: Right. Echo is looking at me with a stare that says, why have fast food when you can have hot pot? |
| Echo: We can have hot pot every day. |
| David: You could. Our next word actually comes as hot pot and a lot of other dishes and that’s Chinese food. |
| Echo: 中餐。(Zhōngcān.) |
| David: Chinese food. |
| Echo: 中餐。(Zhōngcān.) |
| David: And when you come to China, you are going to be asked this a lot. Do you like eating Chinese food? |
| Echo: 你喜欢吃中餐吗？(Nǐ xǐhuān chī zhōngcān ma?) |
| David: Do you like eating Chinese food? |
| Echo: 你喜欢吃中餐吗？(Nǐ xǐhuān chī zhōngcān ma?) |
| David: Sometimes they won’t say 中餐(Zhōngcān), sometimes they will say 中国菜。(Zhōngguó cài.) |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Which is literally Chinese dishes. The opposite of Chinese food is western food. |
| Echo: 西餐。(Xīcān.) |
| David: Western food. |
| Echo: 西餐。我喜欢西餐。(Xīcān. Wǒ xǐhuān xīcān.) |
| David: Which is true of me. |
| Echo: 我喜欢西餐。(Wǒ xǐhuān xīcān.) |
| David: I like western food. I do like Chinese food but day after day after day, it’s nice to have a break sometimes. |
| Echo: 那火锅呢？(Nà huǒguō ne?) |
| David: Hot pot is lovely. Our last word means cuisine. |
| Echo: 料理。(Liàolǐ) |
| David: And this is actually a lot rare. We run into it with a couple of words like Japanese food. |
| Echo: Right 日本料理。(Nihonryōri.) |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: 日本料理怎么样？(Rìběn liàolǐ zěnme yàng?) |
| David: What do you think of Japanese food. |
| Echo: Or like how about we go for Japanese food today. |
| David: Yes. |
| Echo: 日本料理怎么样？(Rìběn liàolǐ zěnme yàng?) |
| David: Japanese food or Japanese cuisine. How about it? So that’s our list of cuisines. The one word we are not covering here, we are leaving for the grammar section. Let’s get to it. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: The focus of our grammar section today is the measure word. |
| Echo: 次。(Cì) |
| David: Indicates the frequency of an action. In the dialogue, we heard it in this line. |
| Echo: 我一年吃一次。(Wǒ yī nián chī yīcì.) |
| David: I eat it once a year. |
| Echo: 我一年吃一次。(Wǒ yī nián chī yīcì.) |
| David: The word |
| Echo: 次。(Cì.) |
| David: Is usually combined with another time word such as |
| Echo: 年，周。(Nián, zhōu.) |
| David: Or |
| Echo: 天。(Tiān.) |
| David: And that’s year, week or day. In the dialogue, we see a verb and then a number and then 次。 |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: To eat one time. |
| Echo: 吃一次。(Chī yīcì.) |
| David: To eat two times. |
| Echo: 吃两次。(Chī liǎng cì.) |
| David: To eat three times. |
| Echo: 吃三次。(Chī sāncì.) |
| David: Things get a bit more tricky when we have got a verb object. A verb object might be to dial a telephone. |
| Echo: 打电话。(Dǎ diànhuà.) |
| David: Where the verb is |
| Echo: 打。(Dǎ.) |
| David: And the object is telephone. |
| Echo: 电话。(Diànhuà.) |
| David: In this case, we have to split that apart and put our number and [*] in the middle. |
| Echo: Right for example, 打三次电话。(Dǎ sāncì diànhuà.) |
| David: To call three times on the telephone. |
| Echo: 打三次电话。(Dǎ sāncì diànhuà.) |
| David: To call three times on the telephone and note the way we did that translation. We are keeping the same word order in English. |
| Echo: 他一天打三次电话。(Tā yītiān dǎ sāncì diànhuà.) |
| David: Every day he calls three times. Another example is the word to cook food. |
| Echo: 做饭。(Zuò fàn.) |
| David: This is a verb object combination. The verb is to make. |
| Echo: 做。(Zuò) |
| David: And the object is food. |
| Echo: 饭。(Fàn.) |
| David: So how would you say he cooks once a week? |
| Echo: 他一周做一次饭。(Tā yīzhōu zuò yīcì fàn.) |
| David: He cooks once a week. |
| Echo: 他一周做一次饭。(Tā yīzhōu zuò yīcì fàn.) |
| David: Or literally that’s he in one week cooks one time food. |
| Echo: 他一周做一次饭。(Tā yīzhōu zuò yīcì fàn.) |
| David: What about if you want to tell someone how hygienic you are? |
| Echo: 我一天洗一次澡。(Wǒ yītiān xǐ yīcì zǎo.) |
| David: I shower once a day. |
| Echo: 我一天洗一次澡。(Wǒ yītiān xǐ yīcì zǎo.) |
| David: Our chineseclass101 pickup lines, I shower once a day. Again I one day verb, number of times, object. |
| Echo: 我一天洗一次澡。(Wǒ yītiān xǐ yīcì zǎo.) |
| David: So this is really common grammar pattern. If you are having trouble with it, make sure you check out our PDF where we have got the grammar point all written down. For now though, you can also just use this as a review of three really common time words. First year. |
| Echo: 年。(Nián.) |
| David: Second week. |
| Echo: 周。(Zhōu.) |
| David: Third day. |
| Echo: 天。(Tiān) |
| David: So Echo, since you like to eat hot pot twice a month, let’s close by asking you how do we say that. I eat hot pot twice a month. |
| Echo: 我一个月吃两次火锅。(Wǒ yīgè yuè chī liǎng cì huǒguō.) |
Outro |
| David: And that’s our podcast for today. As always, if you have any questions or comments. |
| Echo: You can always leave some on the site. |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: Or write to us at contactus@chineseclass101.com |
| David: And we will be happy to get back to you. For now though, from Beijing, I am David. |
| Echo: 我是(Wǒ shì)Echo。 |
| David: Thanks a lot for listening and we will see you on the site. |
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