Learn the key words you'll find in Chinese addresses, as well as the magic secret you'll need to read envelopes, name cards, and more
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| David: Welcome to ChineseClass101. I’m David. |
| Echo: Hi. Da jia hao! 我是(Wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: Echo, we are here with Lesson 46 in our first Beginner series. |
| Echo: 没错儿。第四十六课。(Méi cuò ér. Dì sìshíliù kè.) |
| David: Right. Forty-six. We are almost at the end of this series, so hold in, guys. You’re going to get promoted, soon. We’ve got a lesson here today that’s all about what you should be saying if you’ve been living in a taxi cab in Beijing because you can’t find your hotel. |
| Echo: Right. You should really need to tell the taxi driver what your address. |
| David: Yeah. It’s all about dealing with addresses in Chinese. Before we take you to the dialogue, though, there’s something, Echo, that you wanted to say. |
| Echo: PDF, PDF, PDF. |
| David: Right. Addresses, they’re written down. You’re going to see them on name cards. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: You’re going to see them on envelopes and mailing address. You’ve got to learn how to recognize these characters. Audio is not enough. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So get your hands on those premium transcripts and learn this stuff, okay? With that though, let’s go to the dialogue. |
| 甲:您去哪儿？(JIǍ: Nín qù nǎr?) |
| 乙:去我住的宾馆。(YǏ: Qù wǒ zhù de bīnguǎn.) |
| 甲:您有地址吗？(JIǍ: Nín yǒu dìzhǐ ma?) |
| 乙:哦，如家宾馆。东城区平安大街19号。(YǏ: O, Rújiā Bīnguǎn. Dōngchéngqū Pín'gān Dàjiē shíjiǔ hào.) |
| David: One more time, a bit slower. |
| 甲:您去哪儿？(JIǍ: Nín qù nǎr?) |
| 乙:去我住的宾馆。(YǏ: Qù wǒ zhù de bīnguǎn.) |
| 甲:您有地址吗？(JIǍ: Nín yǒu dìzhǐ ma?) |
| 乙:哦，如家宾馆。东城区平安大街19号。(YǏ: O, Rújiā Bīnguǎn. Dōngchéngqū Pín'gān Dàjiē shíjiǔ hào.) |
| 甲:您去哪儿？(JIǍ: Nín qù nǎr?) |
| David: Where are you going? |
| 乙:去我住的宾馆。(YǏ: Qù wǒ zhù de bīnguǎn.) |
| David: I'm going to the hotel where I stay. |
| 甲:您有地址吗？(JIǍ: Nín yǒu dìzhǐ ma?) |
| David: Do you have an address? |
| 乙:哦，如家宾馆。东城区平安大街19号。(YǏ: O, Rújiā Bīnguǎn. Dōngchéngqū Pín'gān Dàjiē shíjiǔ hào.) |
| David: Oh, "Home Inns," Dongcheng district, Ping'an Street, Number 19. |
| David: Addresses in Chinese. Really? Oh, you’ve got to get good at; it’s a skill. |
| Echo: Well, I think in the West, it’s pretty complicated, too. |
| David: Yeah, but we… |
| Echo: Just you can speak the language. |
| David: Well, we’re going to get into addresses a bit later. I do think in Chinese, it’s a big adjustment for English speakers speaking up addresses. |
| Echo: Right, right. Exactly. |
| David: Because by the time you get to the important part, you’re already wondering what did they say. |
| Echo: Yeah, but there’s only one certain rule for that. Yeah. |
| David: We’re going to get to that in a bit. Before we do, though, we’ve got vocab for you, so let’s go to the vocab section. |
| Echo: Okay. |
| Male: Now, the vocab section. |
| Echo: 您(nín) [natural native speed]. |
| David: The polite form of “you.” |
| Echo: 您(nín) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 您(nín) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 哪兒(nǎr) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Where. |
| Echo: 哪兒(nǎr) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 哪兒(nǎr) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 住(zhù) [natural native speed]. |
| David: To live. |
| Echo: 住(zhù) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 住(zhù) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 賓館(bīnguǎn) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Hotel. |
| Echo: 賓館(bīnguǎn) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 賓館(bīnguǎn) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 地址(dìzhǐ) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Address. |
| Echo: 地址(dìzhǐ) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 地址(dìzhǐ) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 區(qū) [natural native speed]. |
| David: District. |
| Echo: 區(qū) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 區(qū) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 大街(dàjiē) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Street. |
| Echo: 大街(dàjiē) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 大街(dàjiē) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 號(hào) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Number. |
| Echo: 號(hào) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 號 (hào)[natural native speed]. |
| David: A lot of really high frequency stuff here. We’ve got a couple of things we want to put your attention to. |
| Echo: Yup. |
| David: The first is this word. |
| Echo: 您。(nín.) |
| David: Let’s hear that more slowly. |
| Echo: 您。(nín.) |
| David: That’s not the common word for “you”, which is… |
| Echo: 你。(Nǐ) |
| David: The one we heard in our dialogue is… |
| Echo: 您。(nín.) |
| David: Which is rising second tone. |
| Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér.) |
| David: That’s the polite form. That’s a clue that we’re in a cab or in a situation where someone is talking to a customer. |
| Echo: Right. Also, to strangers. |
| David: Right. So in our dialogue ,we heard… |
| Echo: 您去哪儿？(Nín qù nǎr?) |
| David: “Where are you going?” You could also say… |
| Echo: 你去哪儿？(Nǐ qù nǎr?) |
| David: There’s another word here where tone is really, really critical. |
| Echo: 哪儿。(nǎr.) |
| David: That’s the third tone for “where”. |
| Echo: 哪儿。(nǎr.) |
| David: If we change that to fourth tone… |
| Echo: 那儿。(Nà'er) |
| David: It means “there”. |
| Echo: 宾馆。(bīnguǎn.) |
| David: Useful reminder. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: The third reminder we’ve got for you is the word for “hotel”. |
| Echo: 宾馆。(bīnguǎn.) |
| David: In previous lessons, we’ve given you a bunch of other words, too. So instead of saying… |
| Echo: 宾馆在哪儿？(Bīnguǎn zài nǎ'er?) |
| David: …you could swap in a bunch of other words. |
| Echo: 饭店在哪儿？(Fàndiàn zài nǎ'er?) |
| David: Or… |
| Echo: 酒店在哪儿？(Jiǔdiàn zài nǎ'er?) |
| David: Right. The other core vocab we have here is really about addresses. So we’ve got words like “street”… |
| Echo: 大街.(dàjiē.) Or you can say 路。(lù.) |
| David: Yeah. That would be “road.” |
| Echo: Yeah. That’s okay. |
| David: We’ve got “district.” |
| Echo: 区。(qū.) |
| David: …which we hear as the Dongcheng district. |
| Echo: Right, Dongcheng 区。区。(qū. qū.) |
| David: The word for “city”. |
| Echo: 市.(shì.) |
| David: So when people are talking about Beijing, sometimes you’ll hear them say… |
| Echo: Beijing. |
| David: And sometimes you’ll hear them say… |
| Echo: Beijing市.(shì.) |
| David: Beijing City. |
| Echo: Beijing市.(shì.) |
| David: Another one we’ve got for you is a little district. |
| Echo: Right, 小区.(xiǎoqū.) |
| David: Literally, little district. It means more of a community. |
| Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér.) |
| David: So that’s these big compounds with lots of apartment buildings and usually stores and stuff. |
| Echo: 没错儿。小区。(Méi cuò ér. Xiǎoqū.) |
| David: Finally, we’ve got two words which are going to come up and haunts us over and over again, building. |
| Echo: 楼。(lóu) |
| David: Second tone. |
| Echo: 楼。(lóu) |
| David: Entrance. |
| Echo: 单元。单元。(Dānyuán. Dānyuán.) |
| David: In China, you’re going to have these big buildings. |
| Echo: 楼。(lóu.) |
| David: And they’re going to have lots of entrances. |
| Echo: Right, 单元. (dānyuán.) |
| David: So you’ve got to specify which building it’s in and which entrance to use. |
| Echo: Which号.(hào.) |
| David: Which number. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Which is also in our dialogue. So that’s the important vocab. Let’s review it. We’ve got the polite form of “you”. |
| Echo: 您.(nín.) |
| David: How to say “where”. |
| Echo: 哪儿.(nǎr.) |
| David: Three words for hotel. |
| Echo: 宾馆。饭店。酒店。(Bīnguǎn. Fàndiàn. Jiǔdiàn.) |
| David: Then we’ve got a lot of words we’re going to hear and addresses. District. |
| Echo: 区.(qū.) |
| David: Community. |
| Echo: 小区. (xiǎoqū) |
| David: Street. |
| Echo: 大街 or 路.(dàjiē or lù.) |
| David: Building. |
| Echo: 楼.(lóu.) |
| David: Entry way. |
| Echo: 单元.(dānyuán.) |
| David: Number. |
| Echo: 号.(hào.) |
| David: Okay. |
| Male: It’s grammar time. |
| David: The secret to China is everything is backwards. |
| Echo: Yeah, 没错儿. (Méi cuò ér.) |
| David: When it comes to addresses, when it comes to name cards, things just work backwards here, I guess. |
| Echo: Right. We first say big places… |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: …and go to the small places. |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: Right. Let’s first take a look at the sentence in the dialogue. |
| Female: 东城区平安大街19号。(Dōng chéngqū píng'ān dàjiē 19 hào.) |
| David: Dongcheng district, and then we have the street… |
| Echo: 平安大街。(Píng'ān dàjiē.) |
| David: …and then we have the number. |
| Echo: 19号。(19 Hào.) |
| David: As a second language learner, this is tricky. If you lose your concentration anywhere along the line of the address, you miss out on the most important thing, which is, “what number is it?” |
| Echo: Right? |
| David: So China should change that. But since they’re not going to… |
| Echo: Hmm? Hello! |
| David: …we’re just going to have to learn it. |
| Echo: 东城区平安大街19号。(Dōng chéngqū píng'ān dàjiē 19 hào.) |
| David: We’re going to practice this just with some really, really simple addresses for you, okay? “The eastern district in Beijing. |
| Echo: 北京市东城区。(Běijīng shì dōng chéngqū.) |
| David: Let’s hear that again. |
| Echo: 北京市东城区。(Běijīng shì dōng chéngqū) |
| David: Right. So we put the city name first. Next we’ve got, “Number 15 Academic Road”. |
| Echo: 学院路15号。(Xuéyuàn lù 15 hào.) |
| David: Next we’ve got, “Entry way 8, Building 8.” |
| Echo: 八号楼八单元。(Bā hào lóu bā dānyuán.) |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: 还是可以的。(Háishì kěyǐ de.) It’s not that hard. |
| David: It’s not that hard. It’s actually… |
| Echo: You’ll get used to it. |
| David: Yeah. It’s a lot easier when you’re actually dealing with it on paper. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Because numbers, it can be a mindful when you’re still getting used to things. So in closing, if you are going to come to China, if you are here for business, learn the addresses. It’s going to help you a lot. |
| Echo: Right. Actually, we would like you, guys, to practice how to write down address. |
| David: If you’re not sure of the characters that you need, we’ve got a great premium feature for you, character-writing worksheets. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: You can download them off the site. We break all of these words down into the characters and we give you space to practice writing them. It’s a premium feature, one of the things that makes the subscription worth it. Coming to you Beijing, I’m David. |
| Echo: 我是(Wǒ shì)Echo。 |
| David: Thanks a lot for listening, and we’ll see you guys next week. |
| Echo: 下周见。(Xià zhōu jiàn.) Bye-bye. |
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