Learn how to say "how long" and two different words that translate as "to live"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome to chineseclass101. I am David. |
| Echo: 嗨，大家好，我是Echo.(Hāi, dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì Echo.) |
| David: And we are here with elementary lesson 49 in our first season. |
| Echo: 第四十九课。(Dì sìshíjiǔ kè.) |
| David: Right and this is a lesson all about family and holidays. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Holidays that never end, family that never leave. |
| Echo: Yeah Christmas, New Year, Chinese New Year. |
| David: This may hit a bit close to home but we are going to give you the language to deal with it. So we’ve got a dialogue that takes place between probably a husband and wife. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Or a boyfriend and girlfriend around the holiday season. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: Before we take you to the dialogue, we want to remind you that the holiday season is upon us and we are in the middle of our Christmas countdown. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: So we’ve got great discounts on the site. Great discounts on our entire family of language products actually. |
| Echo: Yes everything. |
| David: The discount is getting less and less every passing day. So if you are looking for a gift for someone else, if you are looking for a gift for yourself, now is the perfect time to drop by chineseclass101.com |
| Echo: Right and the sooner you get it, the more you save. |
| David: Yeah with that though, let’s go to our dialogue for today. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A:你的朋友还要住多久？(Nǐ de péngyou hái yào zhù duōjiǔ?) |
| B:没多久，他马上就走了。(Méi duōjiǔ, tā mǎshàng jiù zǒu le.) |
| A:可是他已经住了一个多月了。(Kěshì tā yǐjīng zhù le yī ge duō yuè le.) |
| B:他就快走了。(Tā jiù kuài zǒu le.) |
| A:而且，他一到咱们家就坐到电视机前面，也不跟我们说话。(érqiě, tā yī dào zánmen jiā jiù zuòdào diànshìjī qiánmian, yě bù gēn wǒmen shuōhuà) |
| B:他就这样，你会习惯的。(Tā jiù zhèyàng, nǐ huì xíguàn de.) |
| David: One more time a bit slower. |
| A:你的朋友还要住多久？(Nǐ de péngyou hái yào zhù duōjiǔ?) |
| B:没多久，他马上就走了。(Méi duōjiǔ, tā mǎshàng jiù zǒu le.) |
| A:可是他已经住了一个多月了。(Kěshì tā yǐjīng zhù le yī ge duō yuè le.) |
| B:他就快走了。(Tā jiù kuài zǒu le.) |
| A:而且，他一到咱们家就坐到电视机前面，也不跟我们说话。(érqiě, tā yī dào zánmen jiā jiù zuòdào diànshìjī qiánmian, yě bù gēn wǒmen shuōhuà) |
| B:他就这样，你会习惯的。(Tā jiù zhèyàng, nǐ huì xíguàn de.) |
| Echo: 你的朋友还要住多久？(Nǐ de péngyou hái yào zhù duōjiǔ?) |
| David: How long is your friend going to stay here? |
| Echo: 没多久，他马上就走了。(Méi duōjiǔ, tā mǎshàng jiù zǒu le.) |
| David: Not that long. He will be going right away. |
| Echo: 可是他已经住了一个多月了。(Kěshì tā yǐjīng zhù le yī ge duō yuè le.) |
| David: But he has already stayed a month. |
| Echo: 他就快走了。(Tā jiù kuài zǒu le.) |
| David: He will be gone soon. |
| Echo: 而且，他一到咱们家就坐到电视机前面，也不跟我们说话。(érqiě, tā yī dào zánmen jiā jiù zuòdào diànshìjī qiánmian, yě bù gēn wǒmen shuōhuà) |
| David: And what’s more? Ever since he arrived, he’s been sitting in front of the television and hasn’t spoken with us. |
| Echo: 他就这样，你会习惯的。(Tā jiù zhèyàng, nǐ huì xíguàn de.) |
| David: He’s just this way. You will get used to it. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: So have you ever had friends visiting like this? |
| Echo: Fortunately not yeah. |
| David: Mother, mom, dad. |
| Echo: No, they are not like that but I have had some friends behave in another way you know. |
| David: We’ve got a lot of vocab and the theme for our vocab here is basically visiting and staying with friends and family. So let’s get into that now. And now the vocab section. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Echo: 住 (zhù) |
| David: To live in a place. |
| Echo: 待 (Dài) |
| David: To stay for a short period of time. |
| Echo: 多久(duōjiǔ) |
| David: How long? |
| Echo: 朋友 (péngyou) |
| David: Friend. |
| Echo: 亲戚 (qīnqi) |
| David: Relative. |
| Echo: 一...就 (yī...jiù) |
| David: As soon as, then. |
| Echo: 就这样 (jiùzhèyàng) |
| David: Just this way. |
| Echo: 习惯 (xíguàn) |
| David: To be accustomed. |
| Echo: 习惯 (xíguàn) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: Okay. Lots of interesting vocab. The two ones that leap out at me at least are those first two. |
| Echo: 住 (zhù) and 待(Dài)。 |
| David: Yeah. The first is fourth tone |
| Echo: 住。(zhù.) |
| David: And it means to stay for a long period of time. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Or to live in the place as in he lives in America. |
| Echo: 他住在美国。(Tā zhù zài měiguó.) |
| David: Or I live in Beijing. |
| Echo: 我住在北京。(Wǒ zhù zài běijīng.) |
| David: And the second one is first tone. |
| Echo: 待。(Dài.) |
| David: And it means to stay for a short period of time and to stay overnight for a couple of days. |
| Echo: Yeah right and also it’s very pretty colloquial. |
| David: Yeah it’s much more colloquial. So we might have the sentence, how long are you going to stay. |
| Echo: 你要待多久？ (Nǐ yào dài duōjiǔ?) |
| David: He’s staying for three days. |
| Echo: 他待3天。(Tā dài 3 tiān.) |
| David: Yep. Short difference in those, bear them in mind. And with all of these verbs, we can put 在 (Zài) after it. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So it becomes part of the verb, not as the preposition that goes before. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: So once again, we would say I am living in America. |
| Echo: 我住在美国。(Wǒ zhù zài měiguó.) |
| David: Or he is living in China. |
| Echo: 他住在中国。(Tā zhù zài zhōngguó.) |
| David: Yep. Pay attention to the word order there. The other big one that’s kind of tricky is this how long. |
| Echo: 多久。(Duōjiǔ.) |
| David: Now this is a question word. So it’s a lot like the word how much. |
| Echo: 多少。(Duōshǎo.) |
| David: Right but here how long. |
| Echo: 多久。(Duōjiǔ.) |
| David: And 久 (Jiǔ) literally means a long period of time. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: So it’s how much of this long period of time. Well it’s a question word. So we are going to put it at the end of the sentence just like we do with 多少 (Duōshǎo) right? |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: We’ve got some examples for you. You are going to hear this one in China a lot. |
| Echo: 你来中国多久了？(Nǐ lái zhōngguó duōjiǔle?) |
| David: You are going to get that from all of the cabbies in the city. |
| Echo: Yeah top three questions. |
| David: Also with can you use chopsticks and are you used to Chinese food? |
| Echo: Yeah and where are you from. |
| David: Yeah let’s hear it one more time. |
| Echo: 你来中国多久了？(Nǐ lái zhōngguó duōjiǔle?) |
| David: How long have you been in China? |
| Echo: Yeah. And you know what the next sentence will be? |
| David: Well it depends on what your answer is. They will say you know, I’ve been there for two weeks. |
| Echo: Yeah but they will say 你的中文不错 (Nǐ de zhōngwén bùcuò) or 你的中文很好。(Nǐ de zhōngwén hěn hǎo.) |
| David: Yeah. Another sample sentence we’ve got for you is how long do you want to be gone? |
| Echo: 你想去多久。(Nǐ xiǎng qù duōjiǔ.) |
| David: So the tricky thing to pay attention to here is the word order. Put it at the end of the sentence. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Okay. We’ve got a lot of other vocab here. We’ve got the word for friend. |
| Echo: 朋友。(Péngyǒu.) |
| David: Pay attention to the neutral tone there. |
| Echo: 朋友。(Péngyǒu.) |
| David: Yep. In Mainland China, that’s a neutral sound. In Taiwan, they are going to give you the follow through in tone. There is also the word for relatives or family. |
| Echo: 亲戚。(Qīnqī.) |
| David: And the last word we want to highlight for you is just this way. |
| Echo: 就这样。(Jiù zhèyàng.) |
| David: This is really, really 口语 (Kǒuyǔ) Echo. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: So tell us how we would use this. |
| Echo: Yeah and sometimes people will add 儿 (Er) sound after 样 (Yàng) like 样儿。(Yàng er.) |
| David: Yeah especially in the north. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: And this is really – it’s really casual. It’s really colloquial and it’s just kind of – that’s the way it is. |
| Echo: Yeah. And I don’t want to explain it. |
| David: Why are we doing things this way? |
| Echo: 我们为什么这么做？(Wǒmen wèishéme zhème zuò?) |
| David: Very, very common. You are going to run into that and that brings us to our grammar point. It’s grammar time. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Echo: And today’s grammar point is 一....就。(Yī.... Jiù.) |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: Someone has said that it’s pretty easy for foreigners. |
| David: I said that you guys are going to get this really quickly and Echo is like, it’s a complex grammar structure. |
| Echo: Yeah I think so. |
| David: So we will see. |
| Echo: Because it has 就 (Jiù) there. |
| David: Okay. So it’s got two characters. The first is as easy as 1, 2, 3. |
| Echo: Right it’s 一。(Yī.) |
| David: Which means one. |
| Echo: 一。(Yī.) |
| David: And then the second character is of course our old friend, 就。(Jiù.) |
| Echo: 就。(Jiù.) |
| David: Which means then. And we see this in the pattern where we put the subject and then |
| Echo: 一。(Yī.) |
| David: And then the first part of our sentence and then we stick. |
| Echo: 就。(Jiù.) |
| David: In as a conjunction. And what this means is as soon as then. Let’s take a look at our sentence from the dialogue. |
| Echo: Okay 他一到咱们家，就坐在电视机前面。(Tā yī dào zánmen jiā, jiùzuò zài diànshì jī qiánmiàn.) |
| David: So that’s |
| Echo: 他一到咱们家。(Tā yī dào zánmen jiā.) |
| David: He as soon as gets to our home. |
| Echo: 就坐在电视机前面。(Jiùzuò zài diànshì jī qiánmiàn.) |
| David: Then sits in front of the television. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: So it’s actually pretty easy structure. We’ve got some more examples for you. You guys are going to pick this up really quickly. |
| Echo: Right. 我一回家就睡了。(Wǒ yī huí jiā jiù shuìle.) |
| David: As soon as I got home, I fall asleep and we’ve got the 了 (Le) there telling us that’s past tense. |
| Echo: 没错。我一看见他就笑了。(Méi cuò. Wǒ yī kànjiàn tā jiù xiàole.) |
| David: Which is a sweet sentence. As soon as I saw him or her, I smiled. Again |
| Echo: 我一看见他就笑了。(Wǒ yī kànjiàn tā jiù xiàole.) |
| David: Right. So this is a really easy structure. |
| Echo: Let’s see more sentences. 他一到美国就习惯了。(Tā yī dào měiguó jiù xíguànle.) |
| David: That’s as soon as he got to the United States, he got used to the things. |
| Echo: Yeah 他一到美国就习惯了。(Tā yī dào měiguó jiù xíguànle.) |
| David: Echo, before we go, there is something you’d like to stress. |
| Echo: Right. In our grammar point today, besides the structure 一...就 (Yī... Jiù) you need to remember, also you need to be careful of the tone of 一。(Yī.) |
| David: Because it can change. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: If it comes before a fourth tone character, we got to switch that up and it becomes second tone. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Can you give us one example of that before we leave? |
| Echo: 一到。(Yī dào.) |
| David: As soon as he comes home. |
| Echo: 他一到家。(Tā yī dàojiā.) |
Outro |
| David: Yep. So that’s our lesson for today. We’ve given you a lot of stuff. We’ve got some new vocab, some review. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: A couple of verbs talk about living in places and staying in places. And a grammar point you are going to run into again and again. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: As always, if you are having trouble with any of the stuff, we encourage you to come to the site and check out our PDF transcripts. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: We’ve got all of these example sentences and an elaborate grammar note written up so that you can review this very, very quickly. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Okay. They are going to help the stuff stick. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: And that’s it from us for this week. From Beijing, I am David. |
| Echo: 我是Echo.(Wǒ shì Echo.) |
| David: Thanks a lot for listening and we will see you on the site. |
| Echo: 下次见吧 Bye bye.(Xià cì jiàn ba Bye bye.) |
| David: Bye bye. |
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