Learn how to say hello on the telephone and ask to speak to someone
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Frank: Hey, everyone! |
| Echo: Da jia hao! |
| Frank: Welcome back to ChineseClass101.com, Season 1, Lesson 23 in our Beginner series. |
| Echo: 第二十三课。(Dì èrshísān kè.) |
| Frank: I’m your host, Frank Fradella and I’m joined in the studio, as always, by my amazing co-host, Echo. |
| Echo: 大家好(Dàjiā hǎo)，我是(Wǒ shì)Echo |
| Frank: Today’s lesson is about our boy again. |
| Echo: Yeah, Zhang Fei and another boy. |
| Frank: That’s right. What’s his name? |
| Echo: Wang Lin. |
| Frank: This is a new colleague of his because our boy has got a new job. |
| Echo: Right. They are at the office now. |
| Frank: They’re both speaking casually. Let’s get on to the dialogue. |
| Echo: But before we do… |
| Frank: Right, before we do we want to remind you guys to head up to ChineseClass101.com and comment, comment. We want you to comment your pants right off. We’ll see you there. But for now, let’s do this dialogue. |
| Echo: Let’s go. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| 王林:你怎么了？(WÁNG LÍN: Nǐ zěnme le?) |
| 张飞:没事儿，没事儿。(ZHĀNG FĒI: Méishìr, méishìr.) |
| 王林:告诉我，你怎么了。(WÁNG LÍN: Gàosù wǒ, nǐ zěnme le.) |
| 张飞:真的没事儿。(ZHĀNG FĒI: Zhēn de méishìr.) |
| 王林:好，算了。(WÁNG LÍN: Hǎo, suànle.) |
| Frank: Let’s do that one more time, just a little slower. |
| 王林:你怎么了？(WÁNG LÍN: Nǐ zěnme le?) |
| 张飞:没事儿，没事儿。(ZHĀNG FĒI: Méishìr, méishìr.) |
| 王林:告诉我，你怎么了。(WÁNG LÍN: Gàosù wǒ, nǐ zěnme le.) |
| 张飞:真的没事儿。(ZHĀNG FĒI: Zhēn de méishìr.) |
| 王林:好，算了。(WÁNG LÍN: Hǎo, suànle.) |
| Frank: Okay. We’re back. Echo, the last we left our hero, he seemed to be in pretty good spirits. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| Frank: Things seems to be going pretty well with Ma Li. |
| Echo: Hopefully. But who knows the end? |
| Frank: I don’t know. You think something happened there? |
| Echo: Maybe. |
| Frank: I don’t know. Let’s go ahead and listen to the dialogue and translate it line-by-line. Let’s see if we can figure it out. |
| 王林:你怎么了？(WÁNG LÍN: Nǐ zěnme le?) |
| Frank: What's the matter? |
| 张飞:没事儿，没事儿。(ZHĀNG FĒI: Méishìr, méishìr.) |
| Frank: Nothing’s wrong. Nothing’s wrong. |
| 王林:告诉我，你怎么了。(WÁNG LÍN: Gàosù wǒ, nǐ zěnme le.) |
| Frank: Tell me. What's the matter? |
| 张飞:真的没事儿。(ZHĀNG FĒI: Zhēn de méishìr.) |
| Frank: There's really nothing wrong. |
| 王林:好，算了。(WÁNG LÍN: Hǎo, suànle.) |
| Frank: Okay, never mind. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Echo: Actually, I started to change my mind about Zhang Fei but just a little bit. |
| Frank: Just a little bit. That’s great news. Let’s see how long that last. |
| Echo: Yeah. He seems pretty depressed. |
| Frank: I know. I think he really likes her. Let’s see the vocab word-by-word and take it from there. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Male: Now the vocab section. |
| Echo: 怎么了(zěnmele) [natural native speed] |
| Frank: What's wrong? |
| Echo: 怎么了(zěnmele)[slowly - broken down by syllable]. 怎么了(zěnmele)[natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 告诉(gàosù) [natural native speed]. |
| Frank: To tell. |
| Echo: 告诉(gàosù)[slowly - broken down by syllable]. 告诉(gàosù)[natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 算了(suànle) [natural native speed]. |
| Frank: Never mind. |
| Echo: 算了(suànle)[slowly - broken down by syllable]. 算了(suànle)[natural native speed]. |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Frank: Okay. Not a lot of new vocab today. Let’s take it from the top. |
| Echo: 怎麼了(zěnmele) [natural native speed] |
| Frank: This means, “What's wrong?” or “What’s the matter?” |
| Echo: Yeah. 怎麼了(zěnmele) [natural native speed] |
| Frank: It’s a set phrase. As we mentioned before, context counts for a lot. Now if you’re annoyed with somebody or someone’s annoyed with you, you might hear it like this: |
| Echo: 你怎么了？(Nǐ zěnme le?) |
| Frank: Yeah. That means like, “What’s your problem?” |
| Echo: Frank, 你怎么了?(Nǐ zěnme le?) |
| Frank: Okay, now, Echo’s actually mad at me. But here, we have a colleague who is clearly concerned with the well-being of his co-worker. |
| Echo: Yeah. Right. |
| Frank: So it sounds friendlier. It sounds like this: |
| Echo: 你怎么了？(Nǐ zěnme le?) |
| Frank: Clear difference. One more time, friendly… |
| Echo: 怎么了？(zěnmele?) |
| Frank: Not friendly. |
| Echo: 怎么了？(zěnmele?) |
| Frank: Hear the difference? Now we actually learned how to say… |
| Echo: 没事儿。(méishìr.) |
| Frank: In our last lesson. Here it means there’s no problem. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| Frank: So this is a pretty typical exchange. If someone says, “Is anything wrong?” |
| Echo: 你怎么了？(Nǐ zěnme le?) |
| Frank: And the other person answers, “Nothing’s wrong.” |
| Echo: 没事儿。(Méishìr.) |
| Frank: We know a few basic ways to ask how someone is doing at this point. Let’s review them. “How are you?” |
| Echo: 你好吗？(Nǐ hǎo ma?) |
| Frank: How have you been recently? |
| Echo: 你最近怎么样？(Nǐ zuìjìn zěnme yàng?) |
| Frank: What’s the matter? |
| Echo: 你怎么了？(Nǐ zěnmeliǎo?) |
| Frank: We know a few ways to answer those questions. Let’s review those. |
| Echo: Right. |
| Frank: “I’m good, thanks. And you?” |
| Echo: 我很好(Wǒ hěn hǎo)，谢谢。你呢？(Xièxiè. Nǐ ne?) |
| Frank: I’m great. |
| Echo: 非常好。(Fēicháng hǎo.) |
| Frank: There’s nothing wrong. |
| Echo: 没事儿。(Méishì er.) |
| Frank: Awesome. On to the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
| Male: It’s grammar time. |
| Frank: In today’s lesson, we got a new verb which means “to tell”. |
| Echo: 告訴.(gàosù.) |
| Frank: We want to remind you that in Chinese, we put the verbs after the subject. |
| Echo: Right. |
| Frank: Let’s practice this with another verb we learned earlier, “to know”. |
| Echo: 知道。(zhīdào.) |
| Frank: Let’s take them out for a spin. “Did he tell you?” |
| Echo: 他告诉你了吗？(Tā gàosù nǐle ma?) |
| Frank: You know? Tell me. |
| Echo: 你知道？告诉我。(Nǐ zhīdào? Gàosù wǒ.) |
| Frank: Do you know? |
| Echo: 你知道吗？(Nǐ zhīdào ma?) |
| Frank: Do you know that restaurant? |
| Echo: 你知道那个饭馆吗？(Nǐ zhīdào nàgè fànguǎn ma?) |
| Frank: He knows I don’t know. |
| Echo: 他知道我不知道。(Tā zhīdào wǒ bù zhīdào.) |
| Frank: She doesn’t know he knows she doesn’t know. |
| Echo: 她不知道他知道她不知道。(Tā bù zhīdào tā zhīdào tā bù zhīdào.) |
| Frank: We’re just playing games with you now, but you actually can say that. So we say the subject, the verb, and then the object. |
| Echo: Right. |
| Frank: This is just like English. But sometimes, it’s actually easier than English. |
| Echo: Right. It’s much better. |
| Frank: For example, if we already know the subject, we can leave it out. Let’s see. |
| Echo: 你去哪儿？(Nǐ qù nǎ'er?) |
| Frank: Where are you going? |
| Echo: 去北京。(Qù běijīng.) |
| Frank: I’m going to Beijing. |
| Echo: 你还要什么？(Nǐ hái yào shénme?) |
| Frank: What else would you like? |
| Echo: 还要一瓶啤酒。(Hái yào yī píng píjiǔ.) |
| Frank: I’d also like a bottle of beer. |
| Echo: 你在哪儿？(Nǐ zài nǎ'er?) |
| Frank: Where are you? |
| Echo: 在上海。(Zài shànghǎi.) |
| Frank: I’m in Shanghai. |
| Echo: 你们想吃什么？(Nǐmen xiǎng chī shénme?) |
| Frank: What do you want to eat? |
| Echo: 吃火锅吧。(Chī huǒguō ba.) |
| Frank: Let’s eat hot pot. |
| Frank: We’re out of time. But before we go, we want to remind you guys that now is a great time to become a premium subscriber. We’ve got all the tools you could ever need to really drive this stuff home; the PDF transcripts, the voice recording tool, the flash cards, all the help you could ever want. We’re here for you. But for now, from Beijing, I’m Frank Fradella… |
| Echo: 我是(Wǒ shì) Echo. |
| Frank: We’ll see you next time. 再见。(Zàijiàn.) |
| Echo: 下次见。(Xià cì jiàn.) |
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