Learn about a Chinese particle that relates to past experiences
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome to chineseclass101.com. I am David. |
| Echo: 嗨，大家好，我是 (Hāi, dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: And we are here with elementary season 1, lesson 20. |
| Echo: The Art of Using Chinese Chopsticks. |
| David: Right. None of those Japanese or Korean chopsticks for us. We want Chinese chopsticks. So we’ve got a dialogue that is of course about using chopsticks or trying to use chopsticks. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| David: Before we take you to the dialogue, as always we want to remind you, |
| Echo: Comments, comments, comments! |
| David: Yes, if you have them, leave them on the site, send us an email. We’d love to hear from you. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: With that though, let’s go to the dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A: 我需要刀叉。(Wǒ xūyào dāochā.) |
| B: 你不会用筷子吗？(Nǐ bùhuì yòng kuàizi ma?) |
| A: 不会。我从来没用过筷子。(Bùhuì. Wǒ cónglái méi yòngguò kuàizi.) |
| B: 这样吧，我们喝汤吧。(Zhèyàng ba, wǒmen hē tāng ba.) |
| Once more slowly. |
| A: 我需要刀叉。(Wǒ xūyào dāochā.) |
| B: 你不会用筷子吗？(Nǐ bùhuì yòng kuàizi ma?) |
| A: 不会。我从来没用过筷子。(Bùhuì. Wǒ cónglái méi yòngguò kuàizi.) |
| B: 这样吧，我们喝汤吧。(Zhèyàng ba, wǒmen hē tāng ba.) |
| Once more, with English translation. |
| A: 我需要刀叉。(Wǒ xūyào dāochā.) |
| A: I need a knife and fork. |
| B: 你不会用筷子吗？(Nǐ bùhuì yòng kuàizi ma?) |
| B: You don't know how to use chopsticks? |
| A: 不会。我从来没用过筷子。(Bùhuì. Wǒ cónglái méi yòngguò kuàizi.) |
| A: Nope. I've never used chopsticks. |
| B: 这样吧，我们喝汤吧。(Zhèyàng ba, wǒmen hē tāng ba.) |
| B: How about this, let's have some soup. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: Echo, have you ever eaten soup with chopsticks? |
| Echo: Uh-huh |
| David: So would you do this to someone who came to China? |
| Echo: Nah, it’s ok, you can use the spoon. |
| David: We’ll see. Anyway, our vocab here is pretty basic, pretty simply, stuff you can use all the time. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| David: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we shall see is... |
| Echo: 需要 (xūyào) [natural native speed] |
| David: to need |
| Echo: 需要 (xūyào) [slowly - broken down by syllable] 需要 (xūyào) [natural native speed] |
| David: Next |
| Echo: 刀叉 (dāochā) [natural native speed] |
| David: knife and fork |
| Echo: 刀叉 (dāochā) [slowly - broken down by syllable] 刀叉 (dāochā) [natural native speed] |
| David: Next |
| Echo: 用 (yòng) [natural native speed] |
| David: to use |
| Echo: 用 (yòng) [slowly - broken down by syllable] 用 (yòng) [natural native speed] |
| David: Next |
| Echo: 筷子 (kuàizi) [natural native speed] |
| David: chopsticks |
| Echo: 筷子 (kuàizi) [slowly - broken down by syllable] 筷子 (kuàizi) [natural native speed] |
| David: Next |
| Echo: 从来 (cónglái) [natural native speed] |
| David: ever before |
| Echo: 从来 (cónglái) [slowly - broken down by syllable] 从来 (cónglái) [natural native speed] |
| David: Next |
| Echo: 汤 (tāng) [natural native speed] |
| David: soup |
| Echo: 汤 (tāng) [slowly - broken down by syllable] 汤 (tāng) [natural native speed] |
| David: Next |
| Echo: 勺 (sháo) [natural native speed] |
| David: spoon |
| Echo: 勺 (sháo) [slowly - broken down by syllable] 勺 (sháo) [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: So our vocab here is about eating. Chopsticks, spoons, knives, forks. So let’s take a closer look at some of these words. |
| Echo: Okay. |
| David: Our first word is two words put together |
| Echo: 刀叉 (dāochā) |
| David: Knife and fork. |
| Echo: 刀叉 (dāochā) |
| David: So we can split these out. If you just want a knife, that’s |
| Echo: 刀子 (Dāozi) |
| David: And if you just want a fork, that’s |
| Echo: 叉子 (Chāzi) |
| David: Right but because they go well together, you can just say |
| Echo: 刀叉 (dāochā) |
| David: Please give me a knife and fork. |
| Echo: 请给我一副刀叉。(Qǐng gěi wǒ yī fù dāo chā.) |
| David: Of course sometimes you will go to a restaurant and because they will see that you are not a native speaker or maybe they will hear you are not a native speaker, they will just give you a knife and fork, and you can ask them, please give me chopsticks. |
| Echo: 请给我筷子。(Qǐng gěi wǒ kuàizi.) |
| David: Chopsticks. |
| Echo: 筷子。(kuàizi.) |
| David: And believe it or not, Chinese people will actually drink soup with chopsticks. Well I don’t know if it’s really soup. I mean its noodles and broth. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: But it’s actually really common. So… |
| Echo: That’s right. |
| David: Anyway, if someone gives you soup with chopsticks, there is no shame in asking for a spoon. |
| Echo: 勺儿。(Sháo er.) |
| David: Spoon. |
| Echo: 勺儿。(Sháo er.) |
| David: Please give me a spoon. |
| Echo: 请给我勺儿。(Qǐng gěi wǒ sháo er.) |
| David: So that covers most of the vocabulary. Again, we’ve got knife |
| Echo: 刀子。(Dāozi.) |
| David: Fork |
| Echo: 叉子。(Chāzi.) |
| David: Spoon |
| Echo: 勺儿。(Sháo er.) |
| David: And chopsticks |
| Echo: 筷子。(Kuàizi.) |
| David: If you like egg, you are going to love soup in China because you put egg in everything but soup is easy to identify in the menu because it’s all kind of |
| Echo: 汤。(Tāng.) |
| David: Soup. |
| Echo: 汤。(Tāng.) |
| David: If you get the tones wrong, it’s like asking for candy. |
| Echo: 糖。(Táng.) |
| David: Right. So soup first tone. |
| Echo: 汤。(Tāng.) |
| David: The last word that we want to emphasize is actually more of a phrase. |
| Echo: Yeah 这样吧。(Zhèyàng ba.) |
| David: It’s a way of making suggestions. |
| Echo: 这样吧。(Zhèyàng ba.) |
| David: And it means how about this. |
| Echo: 这样吧。(Zhèyàng ba.) |
| David: How about this way. |
| Echo: 这样吧。(Zhèyàng ba.) |
| David: So this is a set phrase and it’s great for making suggestions. Just put it at the start of your sentence. |
| Echo: Yeah, like 这样吧。(Zhèyàng ba.) Let’s go to the grammar section. |
| David: Yes. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: Our grammar point today is pretty sophisticated. So we are going to teach you today how to say that you’ve done something in the past. |
| Echo: By using 过，过。(Guò,guò.) |
| David: This is the equivalent of the perfect tense in English where you say I have eaten. |
| Echo: Yeah. I have done something. |
| David: Right. I have done, right. In Chinese though, there is no such thing as tense. All we’ve got is something called aspect which is a bit different because Echo, all we have to do is what? |
| Echo: You just put this aspect after a verb. |
| David: Right. So first we’re going to say the verb and then we say |
| Echo: 过。(Guò.) |
| David: This is really close to how we communicate the past aspect in Chinese. There we just add |
| Echo: 了。(Le.) |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: 吃了，喝了。(Chīle, hēle.) |
| David: So you already know how to put things in the past aspect. The difference with |
| Echo: 过。(Guò.) |
| David: Is that the action has to be repeatable. It’s got to be something that you can say that you’ve done before. |
| Echo: Yeah. Just like an experience. |
| David: Yeah. So we’ve got some examples which should make this a bit clear. |
| Echo: 我吃过韩国烧烤。(Wǒ chīguò hánguó shāokǎo.) |
| David: I’ve eaten Korean barbeque. |
| Echo: 我吃过韩国烧烤。 or 你用过筷子吗？(Wǒ chīguò hánguó shāokǎo. Or nǐ yòngguò kuàizi ma?) |
| David: Have you used chopsticks. |
| Echo: 你用过筷子吗？(Nǐ yòngguò kuàizi ma?) |
| David: So what you are really saying in those sentences is, I have done it. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: I have used chopsticks. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Now where things get a bit tricky is if you want to say, I haven’t. Because this is the past tense, we want to precede our verbs with |
| Echo: 没 or 没有。(Méi or méiyǒu.) |
| David: So we have to remember not only to put 过 (Guò) after the verb but to precede it with |
| Echo: 没。(Méi.) |
| David: As in this example |
| Echo:我没用过筷子。 |
| David: I’ve never used chopsticks. |
| Echo: 我没用过筷子。(Wǒ méi yòngguò kuàizi.) |
| David: Or maybe you want to say I’ve never had Chinese soup. |
| Echo: 我没喝过中国汤。(Wǒ méi hēguò zhōngguó tāng.) |
| David: I’ve never drunk Chinese soup. |
| Echo: 我没喝过中国汤。(Wǒ méi hēguò zhōngguó tāng.) |
Outro |
| David: Obviously in a podcast, we can’t get really into depth on this. The aspect system in Chinese is one of the things that confuses a lot of people. So if you are having trouble with this…. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: We highly recommend going to our site and getting that premium transcript and PDF because we’ve written all of this up, there are sample sentences. It’s going to help make it stick. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: With that though, our time is up. Echo, if someone has questions again, what should they do? |
| Echo: Please write your comment on the site and I will get back to you. |
| David: Go to chineseclass101.com. We would love to see you there. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: From Beijing, I am David. |
| Echo: 我是 (Wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: Thanks for listening and we will see you on the site. |
| Echo: 网上见 (Wǎngshàng jiàn) Bye bye. |
Easily master this lesson’s grammar points with in-depth explanations and examples. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Comments
Hide