Learn the Chinese translation to the word "then"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome to chineseclass101.com. I am David. |
| Echo: 嗨，大家好，我是 (Hāi, dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: And here we are with elementary season 1, lesson 17. |
| Echo: A Case of Mistaken Identity in China. |
| David: Right. With us, you will learn to speak Chinese with fun and effective lessons and cultural insights you won’t find in a textbook. |
| Echo: Exactly. |
| David: So Echo, what are we learning in this lesson? |
| Echo: In this lesson, you will learn how to correctly identify males and females in China. |
| David: Yes so this is absolutely necessary. |
| Echo: Yeah. And this conversation takes place between two schoolmates. |
| David: Right. As one of them is looking at the other’s sibling. So there are some emotions going on in here and it’s in casual spoken Mandarin as always. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Before though Echo, you wanted to remind people |
| Echo: Comments, comments, comments. |
| David: Yes if you have comments, if you have questions, leave them on the site and we will get back to you. We promise, okay. Let’s take a listen to the dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A: 哎，这是你的妹妹吧，她真可爱！(āi, zhè shì nǐ de mèimei ba, tā zhēn kěài!) |
| B: 什么？我没有妹妹。(Shénme? Wǒ méiyǒu mèimei.) |
| A: 那她是你的表妹吗？她的长头发真美！(Nà tā shì nǐ de biǎomèi ma? Tā de chángtóufā zhēnměi!) |
| B: 我也没有表妹啊。(Wǒ yě méiyǒu biǎomèi ā.) |
| A: 那她是谁？她有男朋友吗？(Nà tā shì shéi? Tā yǒu nánpéngyou ma?) |
| B: 天啊，他是我弟弟! (Tiānā, tā shì wǒ dìdi !) |
| Once more slowly. |
| A: 哎，这是你的妹妹吧，她真可爱！(āi, zhè shì nǐ de mèimei ba, tā zhēn kěài!) |
| B: 什么？我没有妹妹。(Shénme? Wǒ méiyǒu mèimei.) |
| A: 那她是你的表妹吗？她的长头发真美！(Nà tā shì nǐ de biǎomèi ma? Tā de chángtóufā zhēnměi!) |
| B: 我也没有表妹啊。(Wǒ yě méiyǒu biǎomèi ā.) |
| A: 那她是谁？她有男朋友吗？(Nà tā shì shéi? Tā yǒu nánpéngyou ma?) |
| B: 天啊，他是我弟弟! (Tiānā, tā shì wǒ dìdi !) |
| Once more, with English translation. |
| A: 哎，这是你的妹妹吧，她真可爱！(āi, zhè shì nǐ de mèimei ba, tā zhēn kěài!) |
| A: Hey, is this your sister? She's really cute! |
| B: 什么？我没有妹妹。(Shénme? Wǒ méiyǒu mèimei.) |
| B: What? I don't have a sister. |
| A: 那她是你的表妹吗？她的长头发真美！(Nà tā shì nǐ de biǎomèi ma? Tā de chángtóufā zhēnměi!) |
| A: Then is she your cousin? Her long hair is really beautiful! |
| B: 我也没有表妹啊。(Wǒ yě méiyǒu biǎomèi ā.) |
| B: I don't have a cousin either. |
| A: 那她是谁？她有男朋友吗？(Nà tā shì shéi? Tā yǒu nánpéngyou ma?) |
| A: Then who is she? Does she have a boyfriend? |
| B: 天啊，他是我弟弟! (Tiānā, tā shì wǒ dìdi !) |
| B: Oh, heavens! That's my brother! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: And it is getting harder to tell because long hair is coming in in China. |
| Echo: 对，而且不止是长头发，现在好像有越来越多的男孩子喜欢穿女孩子的衣服。(Duì, érqiě bùzhǐ shì zhǎng tóufǎ, xiànzài hǎoxiàng yǒu yuè lái yuè duō de nán háizi xǐhuān chuān nǚ háizi de yīfú.) |
| David: Whoa! I don’t know about that. Really but long hair… |
| Echo: 看电视就知道。(Kàn diànshì jiù zhīdào.) |
| David: Okay. Long hair is coming in and dyed hair is coming in as well especially streaks so… |
| Echo: 大家要小心。(Dàjiā yào xiǎoxīn.) |
| David: So good luck out there. That being said, our dialogue today is all about hair and about fashion and…. |
| Echo: About gender. |
| David: Yeah a couple of words you really are going to use all the time. So let’s get to it. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Echo: 表妹 (biǎomèi) |
| David: Female cousin. |
| Echo: 头发 (tóufa) |
| David: Hair. |
| Echo: 时尚 (shíshàng) |
| David: Fashionable. |
| Echo: 先生 (xiānsheng) |
| David: Mr. |
| Echo: 女士 (nǚshì) |
| David: Madam. |
| Echo: 姑娘 (gūniang) |
| David: Girl. |
| Echo: 小伙子 (xiǎohuǒzi) |
| David: Young man. |
| Echo: 叔叔 (shūshu) |
| David: Uncle. |
| Echo: 阿姨 (āyí) |
| David: Aunty. |
| Echo: 阿姨 (āyí) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: Okay. So our vocab here, it’s about family members and young men and women. In our vocab section, we actually want to highlight a couple of other words that we ran into. The first one is |
| Echo: 天呐。(Tiān nà.) |
| David: Which sums up this dialogue. |
| Echo: 天呐。(Tiān nà.) |
| David: And it means heavens. Oh my gosh! |
| Echo: 天呐。(Tiān nà.) |
| David: Right as in the sentence |
| Echo: 天呐，你怎么这么脏。(Tiān nà, nǐ zěnme zhème zàng.) |
| David: Heavens! How can you be this dirty? |
| Echo: 天呐，你怎么这么脏。(Tiān nà, nǐ zěnme zhème zàng.) |
| David: Right and so we put this at the start of sentences or you can just use it as a standalone sentence when you are shocked or amazed. |
| Echo: Yeah 天呐。(Tiān nà.) |
| David: The next word we want to highlight is used to describe animals and girls. |
| Echo: 可爱。(Kě'ài.) |
| David: It means cute. |
| Echo: 可爱。(Kě'ài.) |
| David: So we are not going to hear this for boys but you might say that someone’s pet – pet cat maybe is really cute. |
| Echo: 你的猫真可爱。(Nǐ de māo zhēn kě'ài.) |
| David: Your cat is really cute. |
| Echo: 你的猫真可爱。(Nǐ de māo zhēn kě'ài.) |
| David: So why do so many Chinese girls want to be cute? |
| Echo: 大家都想可爱呀，可爱不好吗？(Dàjiā dōu xiǎng kě'ài ya, kě'ài bù hǎo ma?) |
| David: Next we have the word |
| Echo: 头发。(Tóufǎ.) |
| David: Which means hair. |
| Echo: 头发。(Tóufǎ.) |
| David: Now that last character |
| Echo: 发。(Fā.) |
| David: Is technically fourth tone when it means hair. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: But here it’s the neutral tone. |
| Echo: 头发。(Tóufǎ.) |
| David: So this is something where Mainland and Taiwanese usage is really different. In Taiwan, they are going to pronounce that second character in the fourth tone but in Mainland China, its neutral tone. In our vocab section, we covered a lot of names for people who are in your family. Now you can go and review these or you can come and get the PDF on the site that has them. Let’s move on to the grammar point. |
| Echo: 好的 (Hǎo de.) |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: It’s grammar time. Our grammar point today revolves around one demonstrative pronoun. |
| Echo: 那。(Nà.) |
| David: That. |
| Echo: 那。(Nà.) |
| David: Now we’ve heard this before and in that case, it did mean that. |
| Echo: 那。(Nà.) |
| David: As in |
| Echo: 那个。(Nàgè.) |
| David: That one. So that’s the character we are talking about but in our dialogue today, we are using it to mean something else. Echo, what did we hear in the dialogue? |
| Echo: 那她是谁？(Nà tā shì shéi?) |
| David: In that case who is she |
| Echo: 那她是谁？(Nà tā shì shéi?) |
| David: So who is she then? Now in spoken Chinese, you are going to run into this a lot. 那 (Nà) is used to connect two sentences and it’s thought that if the first thing goes, then the second. For instance |
| Echo: 你走了那我怎么办？(Nǐ zǒule nà wǒ zěnme bàn?) |
| David: If you go, then what am I supposed to do. |
| Echo: 你走了那我怎么办？(Nǐ zǒule nà wǒ zěnme bàn?) |
| David: If you go, then what am I supposed to do and here we’ve got it in the same sentence joining two clauses. You could just use it at the start of the sentence though. Let’s take a look in another example. |
| Echo: 不是你的错那是谁的错？(Bùshì nǐ de cuò nà shì shéi de cuò?) |
| David: If it’s not your fault, then whose is it? |
| Echo: 不是你的错那是谁的错？(Bùshì nǐ de cuò nà shì shéi de cuò?) |
| David: If it’s not your fault, then whose fault is it? Another example |
| Echo: 那他是怎么走的？走路吗？(Nà tā shì zěnme zǒu de? Zǒulù ma?) |
| David: Then how is he supposed to go, walk there? |
| Echo: 那他是怎么走的？走路吗？(Nà tā shì zěnme zǒu de? Zǒulù ma?) |
| David: So how did he go? Walk there. And in that last sentence, we have an example of |
| Echo: 那。(Nà.) |
| David: Being used at the beginning of the sentence. It’s only clear from context what they are talking about. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Right. So someone has said before, he’s gone. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: And they said well, in that case, |
| Echo: 那他是怎么走的? (Nà tā shì zěnme zǒu de?) |
| David: So then how did he go. So pay attention to this. You are not going to see this in a lot of textbooks but you are going to run into this all the time in China. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
Outro |
| David: So be aware of it. And with that said, that’s the end of our grammar point and our podcast for today. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Before we leave you, we want to remind you that we’ve got all of this stuff written up in our lesson transcripts. You can download them directly from the site or through your premium RSS feed. |
| Echo: 没错 (Méi cuò) It’s really convenient. |
| David: Yes. So if you haven’t looked yet, be sure to check those out. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: 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. |
| Echo: 网上见吧 (Wǎngshàng jiàn ba) Bye bye. |
| David: Bye bye. |
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