Learn a Chinese phrase that helps you express that something intensifies as another does too, with two patterns to express just this
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome to chineseclass101. I am David. |
| Echo: 大家好，我是 (Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì) Echo。 |
| David: And we are here with lesson 8 in our Elementary series. |
| Echo: 第八课。(Dì bā kè) |
| David: Yes the 8th lesson. |
| Echo: It’s a good number. |
| David: Of season 1 which is a good lesson too. So this is going to be suitable for you if you are up past the beginner level but you are not yet an advanced student and we’ve got an exciting dialogue for you today. It’s all about movies. So we are going to go on to the dialogue in a sec. Before we do though, we want to remind you, if you have not yet signed up for your free trial and you’ve not yet tried out our awesome voice recording tool, you don’t know what you are missing. Literally sign up, test it out and you are going to find it’s going to help your Chinese get better and that’s why you are here. And now I think Echo. |
| Echo: Let’s go listen to the dialogue. |
| David: Okay. |
| DIALOGUE |
| 甲:想去看电影吗？(JIǍ: Xiǎng qù kàn diànyǐng ma?) |
| 乙:太好了，我最喜欢看电影了！(YǏ: Tàihǎole, wǒ zuì xǐhuan kàn diànyǐng le!) |
| 甲:我也是。动作片、恐怖片，越恐怖越好。(JIǍ: Wǒ yě shì. Dòngzuòpiān, kǒngbùpiān, yuè kǒngbù yuè hǎo.) |
| 乙:嗯，我比较喜欢文艺片。(YǏ: Ng, wǒ bǐjiào xǐhuan wényìpiān.) |
| 甲:那我们还是去吃饭吧。(JIǍ: Nà wǒmen hái shì qù chīfàn ba.) |
| A: Want to go see a movie? |
| B: Great, I really like watching films! |
| A: Me too. Action films and horror films...the scarier the better. |
| B: Oh, I prefer art films. |
| A: Then maybe we should go eat instead. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Echo: You know what, I heard that why men like 恐怖片。(kǒngbùpiān.) |
| David: Echo, why do men like to take women to horror films? |
| Echo: 因为 (Yīnwèi) They think it will get them closer physically and mentally. |
| David: But you just see right through us. Guys, the game is up. No, the women are in on the secret. We’ve got to find a new film genre. Maybe guys like horror films. There are some good horror films out there. Okay anyway, as you may have guessed, we’ve got a vocab section for you today. Our vocab section is all about types of films. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Right. So we are going to start off Echo by just going through them. And now the vocab section. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Echo: 最 (zuì) |
| David: Most |
| Echo: 最, 最. 动作片 (zuì, zuì. dòngzuòpiān) |
| David: Action film. |
| Echo: 动作片, 动作片. 恐怖片 (dòngzuòpiān, dòngzuòpiān. kǒngbùpiān) |
| David: Horror film. |
| Echo: 恐怖片, 恐怖片. 文艺片 (kǒngbùpiān, kǒngbùpiān. wényìpiān) |
| David: Art film. |
| Echo: 文艺片, 文艺片. 爱情片 (wényìpiān, wényìpiān. àiqíngpiān) |
| David: Romantic film. |
| Echo: 爱情片, 爱情片. 纪录片 (àiqíngpiān, àiqíngpiān. jìlùpiān) |
| David: Documentary. |
| Echo: 纪录片, 纪录片. 科幻片 (jìlùpiān, jìlùpiān. kēhuànpiān) |
| David: Science fiction film. |
| Echo: 科幻片, 科幻片. 侦探片 (kēhuànpiān, kēhuànpiān. zhēntànpiān) |
| David: Detective film. |
| Echo: 侦探片, 侦探片. 好莱坞大片 (zhēntànpiān, zhēntànpiān. Hǎoláiwūdàpiān) |
| David: Hollywood blockbuster. |
| Echo: 好莱坞大片, 好莱坞大片. 比较 (Hǎoláiwūdàpiān, Hǎoláiwūdàpiān. bǐjiào) |
| David: Relatively. |
| Echo: 比较, 比较. (bǐjiào, bǐjiào.) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: Lots of exciting words. I think the first thing we’ve got to point out is this word that’s on the end of all of them. |
| Echo: 片.(Piàn.) Be careful. This is the first time we put R after it. |
| David: Yeah there are two things to point out. First is, you’ve probably seen this before. It’s a measure word. It means like a piece or slice like a piece of bread. |
| Echo: 一片面包。(Yīpiàn miànbāo.) |
| David: Right. That’s fourth tone. In this case though when you are referring to films, it’s first tone. |
| Echo: Right and don’t forget R sound after it. |
| David: Yeah. Can you – we hear that once. Once its fourth tone, once its first tone with the R发音 (Fāyīn) fourth tone. |
| Echo: 片 (Piàn) |
| David: First tone with R发音 (Fāyīn) |
| Echo: 片(Piàn) |
| David: Don’t get this wrong. I got this wrong for years. |
| Echo: Really? |
| David: And then no one corrected me and then they corrected me and I felt so stupid. You guys don’t need to feel stupid as I felt. Don’t make that mistake. Second thing is, all of these are really – it’s a word plus the word for film. So let’s run down the list. We’ve got action |
| Echo: 动作 (Dòngzuò) |
| David: Can you give us the sentence with action in it? |
| Echo: 动作快一点。(Dòngzuò kuài yīdiǎn.) |
| David: Move a bit faster, you know, leap into action a bit faster. What’s next? |
| Echo: 恐怖 (Kǒngbù) |
| David: That’s an adjective which means scary. It’s like oh my god, it’s really scary. |
| Echo: 太恐怖了！(Tài kǒngbùle!) |
| David: What about the horror film is really scary? |
| Echo: 恐怖片太恐怖了！(Kǒngbù piàn tài kǒngbùle!) |
| David: Umm now the third one is an art film. |
| Echo: 文艺片 (Wényì piàn) |
| David: And there is another way of saying this that you will hear too. It’s a literal translation from English. |
| Echo: 艺术片 (Yìshù piàn) |
| David: You are going to hear them both. Obviously love, you know by now. |
| Echo: 爱情片 (Àiqíng piān) |
| David: Right. What about a romantic comedy? |
| Echo: 爱情喜剧 (Àiqíng xǐjù) |
| David: I like those. Those are fine. You like those Echo. Moving on, we’ve got documentary. |
| Echo: 记录片 (Jìlùpiàn) |
| David: That’s coming from the noun record. |
| Echo: 记录 (Jìlù) |
| David: As in do you have notes from the meeting. |
| Echo: 你有会议记录吗？(Nǐ yǒu huìyì jìlù ma?) |
| David: Yeah. Finally we’ve got science fiction. |
| Echo: 科幻片 (Kēhuàn piān) |
| David: Yeah that’s a science fiction film. Science fiction itself is |
| Echo: 科幻 (Kēhuàn) |
| David: Which is really contraction of science. |
| Echo: 科学 (Kēxué) |
| David: And fantasy. |
| Echo: 幻想 (Huànxiǎng) |
| David: Yep. Next we’ve got the detective film. |
| Echo: 侦探片 (Zhēntàn piàn) |
| David: Yeah. |
| Echo: It’s very interesting. |
| David: Yeah and there is something great about this next word too. Hollywood blockbuster. |
| Echo: 好莱坞大片 (Hǎoláiwù dàpiàn) |
| David: And because Hollywood rules the world, sometimes we even leave off Hollywood and we just say |
| Echo: 大片 (Dàpiàn) |
| David: Yeah. So if someone is saying |
| Echo: 大片 (Dàpiàn) |
| David: They are usually talking about Hollywood films. |
| Echo: It’s big. |
| David: Yeah it’s huge, explosive. Lately, there have been a couple of Chinese 大片 (Dàpiàn) |
| Echo: 真的吗？(Zhēn de ma?) |
| David: Red Cliff. |
| Echo: 赤壁 (Chìbì) |
| David: Red Cliff, Red Cliff II is solid movie guys. If you haven’t seen it, we recommend it. We had fun. And our last word is the adverb relatively. |
| Echo: 比较 (Bǐjiào) You may notice in the dialogue, the actress said 比较 (Bǐjiào) |
| David: Oh right. This is a common, common mistake people will make. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Chinese people will make. So you could feel better right now. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Whenever you make a mistake, you can feel better. People make it all the time here. At ChineseClass101, we are going to point it out for you. |
| Echo: Yeah so remember it’s 比较 (Bǐjiào) |
| David: Yeah. |
| Echo: Fourth tone. |
| David: Fourth tone. People will frequently put that into third tone now. Finally we are going to take you through some sample sentences especially focusing on comparing things. So we want to put you in a situation. You’ve just taken the day to the films and you want to say, let’s go watch a horror film. |
| Echo: 我们去看恐怖片吧。(Wǒmen qù kàn kǒngbù piàn ba.) |
| David: Anyway that’s our vocab section. Lots of films. Now you know how to say them, now you know how to ask for my name, especially in horror films. Let’s go on with the grammar section. Now we’ve got something that is really going to knock your socks off. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: Okay Echo, we’ve promised big things for the grammar section today. We’ve got to deliver. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: What’s our focus today? |
| Echo: 越...越... (Yuè... Yuè...) |
| David: Hmm this is a really common sentence pattern in Chinese that it literally means the more da da da da the more. |
| Echo: Right. 越...越...(Yuè... Yuè...) |
| David: As in |
| Echo: 恐怖片，越恐怖越好。(Kǒngbù piàn, yuè kǒngbù yuè hǎo.) |
| David: Horror films, the more horrific, the more better. |
| Echo: 我喜欢看爱情片，越多越好。(Wǒ xǐhuān kàn àiqíng piān, yuè duō yuè hǎo.) |
| David: I like to see romantic films. The more of them |
| Echo: The better. |
| David: The more of them, the better. |
| Echo: 越多越好。(Yuè duō yuè hǎo.) |
| David: Right. So we’ve got a sentence pattern here. Now the first pattern we are going to teach you is |
| Echo: 越...(Yuè...) |
| David: Adjective. |
| Echo: 越...(Yuè...) |
| David: Adjective. Okay so we are going to take the adjectives and put them in those two spaces. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: As in the sentences |
| Echo: 这些花越红越漂亮。(Zhèxiē huā yuè hóng yuè piàoliang.) |
| David: These flowers, the redder they are, the more beautiful they are. Next we got another example. |
| Echo: 买东西越便宜越好。(Mǎi dōngxī yuè piányí yuè hǎo.) |
| David: That’s a... The cheaper things are, the better they are. Anyway, that’s our first example. It’s 越 (Yuè)adjective 越 (Yuè) adjective. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: The more adjective, the more adjective. Our second example, we can take out that first adjective and we can put a verb in there. |
| Echo: So the pattern is 越...(Yuè...) |
| David: Verb |
| Echo: 越...(Yuè...) |
| David: Adjective. As in the sentences |
| Echo: 他越看越恐怖。(Tā yuè kàn yuè kǒngbù.) |
| David: The more he looks, the more scared he gets. |
| Echo: 妈妈越说越生气。(Māmā yuè shuō yuè shēngqì.) |
| David: The more mother speaks, the more she gets angry. |
| Echo: 没错。我越走越累。(Méi cuò. Wǒ yuè zǒu yuè lèi.) |
| David: The more I go, the tidier I get. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Yeah. This is a really useful phrase and we’ve got finally the third kind as well. Now this is |
| Echo: 越...(Yuè...) |
| David: Verb |
| Echo: 越...(Yuè...) |
| David: Verb. But there is a trick here. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: This is actually the trickiest of the bunch because you can’t just use any verb. In this construction, the second verb has to be a verb that tells us how you feel or what you think. |
| Echo: Right or something you desire. |
| David: Yeah. So what kind of verbs are we talking about here Echo? |
| Echo: 想 (Xiǎng) |
| David: To think or to wish. |
| Echo: 喜欢 (Xǐhuān) |
| David: To like |
| Echo: 爱 (Ài) |
| David: To love. |
| Echo: 讨厌 (Tǎoyàn) |
| David: To hate. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Okay. You are going to get this I think with these example sentences. |
| Echo: 我越看越喜欢。(Wǒ yuè kàn yuè xǐhuān.) |
| David: The more I watch it, the more I like it. |
| Echo: 他越吃越想吃。(Tā yuè chī yuè xiǎng chī.) |
| David: The more he eats, the more he wants to eat. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: 我们越听越讨厌。(Wǒmen yuè tīng yuè tǎoyàn.) |
| David: The more we listen, the more we hate it. We can add other verbs after our second verb there as in the sentence, the more he eats, the more he wants to eat. |
| Echo: 他越吃越想吃。(Tā yuè chī yuè xiǎng chī.) |
| David: How about action movies? The more he sees, the more he wants to see. |
| Echo: 他越看越想看。(Tā yuè kàn yuè xiǎng kàn.) |
| David: And notice one more thing. The subject to this is often right at the beginning of the sentence. Okay so that’s our grammar point for today. A really useful sentence structure. So there are three ways of using this. The first is 越 (Yuè) adjective 越 (Yuè) adjective. The second 越 (Yuè) verb 越 (Yuè) adjective and the third has two verbs but the second verb... |
| Echo: Needs to be your fillings or your thoughts. |
Outro |
| David: Yeah it has to describe how you feel or what you think. Okay and with that, that brings our lesson to a close. Speaking of how you feel and speaking of what you think Echo, you had something you wanted to say. |
| Echo: Please leave a comment. |
| David: If you have any thoughts, if you have any suggestions, come visit us at |
| Echo: Chineseclass101.com |
| David: Come visit us at chineseclass101.com |
| Echo: And leave us comment. |
| David: Leave us a comment, leave us a note or send us an email. |
| Echo: Let us know what kind of films you like. |
| David: Yes and we are going to get back to you. Thanks a lot for listening. From downtown Beijing, I am David. |
| Echo: 我是 (Wǒ shì) Echo。 |
| David: And we will see you next week. |
| Echo: Looking forward to seeing you on the site. |
| David: 再见！(Zàijiàn!) |
| Echo: Bye bye. |
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