Learn about a Chinese resultative verb compliment that you can use with different verbs
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 |
| Anthony: Welcome to chineseclass101, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn Chinese. |
| Echo: 嗨，大家好，我是Echo。(Hāi, dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì Echo.) |
| Anthony: And I am Anthony. This is our 24th lesson in our second season of our beginner series and the title of today’s lesson is The Chinese Currency Exchange. |
| Echo: Right and today, we will tell you how to change your home currency into Chinese renminbi. |
| Anthony: Right and one of the first things that I do when I get out of the airplane coming back from the US is I change my American dollars into Chinese renminbi. |
| Echo: Yeah and that is what is happening in today’s dialogue, changing money. |
| Anthony: Right. Now before we go to the dialogue, come to chineseclass101.com, sign up for your free lifetime subscription. Echo, what do you have to do to get that? |
| Echo: All you have to do is entering your email address. |
| Anthony: Right. It’s that simple. After you do that, you are going to get access to a bunch of great learning material and you are going to be studying Chinese at a fast, fast pace. |
| Echo: Right. |
| Anthony: Okay with that said, let’s go to the dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A.我能换钱吗？ (A.Wǒ néng huàn qián ma?) |
| B.你要换美元？(B.Nǐ yào huàn měiyuán?) |
| A.对。(A.Duì.) |
| B.换成人民币？(B.Huàn chéng rénmínbì?) |
| A.对。(A.Duì.) |
| B.换多少？(B.Huàn duōshǎo?) |
| A.400美元。(A.Sìbǎi měiyuán.) |
| B.没问题。(B.Méiwèntí.) |
| Anthony: One more time, a little bit slower. |
| A.我能换钱吗？(A.Wǒ néng huàn qián ma?) |
| B.你要换美元？(B.Nǐ yào huàn měiyuán?) |
| A.对。(A.Duì.) |
| B.换成人民币？(B.Huàn chéng rénmínbì?) |
| A.对。(A.Duì.) |
| B.换多少？(B.Huàn duōshǎo?) |
| A.400美元。(A.Sìbǎi měiyuán.) |
| B.没问题。(B.Méiwèntí.) |
| Anthony: One more time, with English. |
| Echo: 我能换钱吗？(Wǒ néng huàn qián ma?) |
| Anthony: Can I change money? |
| Echo: 你要换美元？(Nǐ yào huàn měiyuán?) |
| Anthony: Do you want to change your US dollars? |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| Anthony: Yes. |
| Echo: 换成人民币？(Huàn chéng rénmínbì?) |
| Anthony: Change the money into renminbi? |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| Anthony: Yes. |
| Echo: 换多少？(Huàn duōshǎo?) |
| Anthony: How much do you want to change? |
| Echo: 400美元。(Sìbǎi měiyuán.) |
| Anthony: 400 US dollars. |
| Echo: 没问题。(Méiwèntí.) |
| Anthony: No problem. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Anthony: Okay now, there are a couple of places where you can have money exchanged at. One is the airport. |
| Echo: Right and you can also go to most major banks. They can exchange money too. |
| Anthony: Right. I’ve even seen post office branches who can exchange money for you. |
| Echo: But there are two things you will need to get your money exchanged in China. One is your passport. |
| Anthony: Right and the other is today’s vocab lesson. We are going to give you all the crucial words you are going to need to know to get your money exchanged. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) So let’s go to the vocab list now. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Anthony: And now the vocab section. |
| Echo: 换钱 (huàn qián) |
| Anthony: To change money. |
| Echo: 换钱, 换钱. 换 (huàn qián, huàn qián. huàn) |
| Anthony: To change |
| Echo: 换, 换. 换成 (huàn, huàn. huàn chéng) |
| Anthony: To change into. |
| Echo: 换成, 换成. 美元 (huàn chéng, huàn chéng. měiyuán) |
| Anthony: American money. |
| Echo: 美元, 美元. 人民币 (měiyuán, měiyuán. rénmínbì) |
| Anthony: Chinese currency. |
| Echo: 人民币, 人民币. 存 (rénmínbì, rénmínbì. cún) |
| Anthony: To save. |
| Echo: 存, 存. 取 (cún, cún. qǔ) |
| Anthony: To withdraw. |
| Echo: 取, 取. 办 (qǔ, qǔ. bàn) |
| Anthony: To set up. |
| Echo: 办, 办. (bàn, bàn.) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Anthony: So the theme for today’s vocab section are words that you can use at a bank. |
| Echo: Right. So our first word is 换钱 (huàn qián) |
| Anthony: To exchange money. |
| Echo: 换钱。我想换钱。(Huànqián. Wǒ xiǎng huànqián.) |
| Anthony: I want to exchange money. |
| Echo: 我想换钱。(Wǒ xiǎng huànqián.) |
| Anthony: Okay and that first verb that we saw there |
| Echo: 换 (Huàn) |
| Anthony: And this is to change. |
| Echo: 换 (Huàn) |
| Anthony: And you can use this for a couple of things. Not just money, maybe if you want to change clothes or… |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| Anthony: Maybe change a seat. |
| Echo: Anything is okay. |
| Anthony: And the example that we are using today is |
| Echo: 换200欧元。(Huàn 200 ōuyuán.) |
| Anthony: Yes I want to change 200 Euros. |
| Echo: And notice that the Chinese word for Euros is 欧元。(Ōuyuán.) |
| Anthony: Yes and this comes from |
| Echo: 欧洲 (Ōuzhōu) |
| Anthony: Yes and that’s the word for Europe. |
| Echo: Yeah 换200欧元。(Huàn 200 ōuyuán.) |
| Anthony: This next word we are going to go over more thoroughly in the grammar section but first Echo, what is the word? |
| Echo: 换成 (Huàn chéng) |
| Anthony: To change into. |
| Echo: 换成。都换成美元。(Huàn chéng. Dōu huàn chéng měiyuán.) |
| Anthony: I want to change it all into American dollars. |
| Echo: 都换成美元。(Dōu huàn chéng měiyuán.) |
| Anthony: And that leads us to our next word. |
| Echo: 美元。(Měiyuán.) |
| Anthony: American money. |
| Echo: 美元。(Měiyuán.) |
| Anthony: Yeah recently I got my hands on some US dollars here in China. I won a burrito eating contest… |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| Anthony: And the price was a $100. So I got a big fat $100 bill with Benjamin Franklin on the front. So that was cool because I mean I don’t think most Chinese people have seen a $100 bill. Okay so Echo, what’s our sample sentence for American money? |
| Echo: 一百美元换多少人民币？(Yībǎi měiyuán huàn duōshǎo rénmínbì?) |
| Anthony: A 100 American dollars changes into how much renminbi? |
| Echo: 一百美元换多少人民币？(Yìbǎi měiyuán huàn duōshǎo rénmínbì?) |
| Anthony: Yeah so I think the exchange rate now is 6.8 renminbi to One American dollar. |
| Echo: Yeah I think so. |
| Anthony: Or it’s like 6.7, 6.8 something around that. |
| Echo: 人民币 (rénmínbì) |
| Anthony: This is the Chinese unit of currency. |
| Echo: 人民币。在哪换人民币？(Rénmínbì. Zài nǎ huàn rénmínbì?) |
| Anthony: Where can I change renminbi? And one of the cool things that I like about the Chinese currency is that on the back, it has a cool portrait of a unique place in China. So there is I think Taishan and they have Guilin and some minorities and stuff like that. So it’s really cool if you can get your hands on some Chinese currency. |
| Echo: 在哪换人民币？(Zài nǎ huàn rénmínbì?) |
| Anthony: Where can I exchange Chinese renminbi? |
| Echo: 存 (Cún) |
| Anthony: To save. |
| Echo: 存 (Cún) |
| Anthony: So Echo, give us a sample sentence for to save. |
| Echo: 我想存钱。(Wǒ xiǎng cún qián.) |
| Anthony: I would like to save my money. |
| Echo: 我想存钱。(Wǒ xiǎng cún qián.) |
| Anthony: Okay. The opposite of saving is this. |
| Echo: 取 (Qǔ) |
| Anthony: To withdraw. |
| Echo: 取。他取了一千块。(Qǔ. Tā qǔle yīqiān kuài.) |
| Anthony: He withdrew a $1000. |
| Echo: 他取了一千块。(Tā qǔle yīqiān kuài.) |
| Anthony: I was at the ATM earlier today Echo and I made it a point to find out how much money I could withdraw in one day. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| Anthony: From the ATM and it was 2500 renminbi. |
| Echo: Really? |
| Anthony: Yeah. And I know at some banks, you can withdraw up to 3000. So Echo, you have another statistic for your bank. |
| Echo: Yeah at China Merchants Bank, it is that you can take out 10,000. |
| Anthony: Well that’s a lot. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| Anthony: I guess the merchants need a lot of money whereas I, I don’t need more than 2500 for my daily doings. |
| Echo: Jesus! |
| Anthony: Okay so the next thing, if you want to go to a bank and you want to open up a account or if you want to get a credit card, you want to use this verb. |
| Echo: 办 (Bàn) |
| Anthony: To set up. |
| Echo: 办。我想办信用卡。(Bàn. Wǒ xiǎng bàn xìnyòngkǎ.) |
| Anthony: Yes I want to set up a credit card or I want to open up a credit card. |
| Echo: 我想办信用卡。(Wǒ xiǎng bàn xìnyòngkǎ.) |
| Anthony: Okay so that does it for our vocab section. In review, a few takeaway points. To change money is |
| Echo: 换钱 (Huànqián) |
| Anthony: To withdraw. |
| Echo: 取 (Qǔ) |
| Anthony: To save |
| Echo: 存 (Cún) |
| Anthony: And to open up as in to open up a credit card account. |
| Echo: 办 (Bàn) |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Anthony: Okay. Now let’s go on to the grammar point. It’s grammar time. |
| Echo: The focus of this lesson is a complement 成 (Chéng) |
| Anthony: Right. When combined with another verb, this means to change into. |
| Echo: Right. For example, in the dialogue, we hear this 换成人民币。(Huàn chéng rénmínbì.) |
| Anthony: Do you want to change it into renminbi? |
| Echo: So here we have 换成 (Huàn chéng) |
| Anthony: Yes these two words combined means to change into. |
| Echo: 换 (Huàn) alone means to change but 成 (Chéng) means to change into. |
| Anthony: Right. Now let’s take a look at another example. |
| Echo: 我要换成美元。(Wǒ yào huàn chéng měiyuán.) |
| Anthony: I want to change it into American dollars. |
| Echo: 我要换成美元。(Wǒ yào huàn chéng měiyuán.) |
| Anthony: So you have some form of money to begin with and now you want to change that money into American dollars. |
| Echo: Right and the pattern for using 成 (Chéng) is a verb plus 成 (Chéng) plus the object. |
| Anthony: Right and the object is a result of the action. So Echo, take us through a few more examples. |
| Echo: 我想换成大号的。(Wǒ xiǎng huàn chéng dà hào de.) |
| Anthony: I want to change to a bigger size. |
| Echo: 我想换成大号的。(Wǒ xiǎng huàn chéng dà hào de.) |
| Anthony: Now Echo, what is the object in this sentence? |
| Echo: 大号的。(Dà hào de.) |
| Anthony: Right big size. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| Anthony: And it’s what you want to be changed into. So maybe before, they have a smaller size and it doesn’t fit. So they want to change into a |
| Echo: 我想换成软卧。(Wǒ xiǎng huàn chéng ruǎnwò..) |
| Anthony: Yes I want to change into a soft sleeper. |
| Echo: 我想换成软卧。(Wǒ xiǎng huàn chéng ruǎnwò.) |
| Anthony: And if you ever find yourself on a train holding a hard seat ticket, memorize this sentence. |
| Echo: 我想换成软卧。(Wǒ xiǎng huàn chéng ruǎnwò.) And another verb that you compare 成 (Chéng) with is 改。(Gǎi.) |
| Anthony: Right. |
| Echo: 改成。(Gǎi chéng.) |
| Anthony: Now you want to use these two words when you are talking about change such as change on paper be it text or numbers. |
| Echo: Our first example is 请你改成对的。(Qǐng nǐ gǎi chéng duì de.) |
| Anthony: Please change it into the right one. |
| Echo: 请你改成对的。(Qǐng nǐ gǎi chéng duì de.) The object that we are changing is 对的。(Duì de.) |
| Anthony: The right one. Okay what’s our next sentence Echo? |
| Echo: 这个改成中文。(Zhège gǎi chéng zhōngwén.) |
| Anthony: Change this into Chinese. |
| Echo: 这个改成中文。(Zhège gǎi chéng zhōngwén.) |
| Anthony: So maybe you are looking at a piece of paper, it’s all in English and it needs to be in Chinese, you can say this sentence. |
| Echo: 这个改成中文。(Zhège gǎi chéng zhōngwén.) |
| Anthony: Right. So in review, we learned two new verbs for to change into. |
| Echo: Right. The first one is 换成 (Huàn chéng) |
| Anthony: And this can mean a whole host of things such as changing in a pair of pants or changing money as we used in the dialogue. |
| Echo: Another variation is 改成 (Gǎi chéng) |
| Anthony: Yes and this includes changes that can be made in writing such as spelling errors or number errors. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
Outro |
| Anthony: Okay so that does it for our grammar section. Now we covered a few complex ideas. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| Anthony: If there is anything that you do not understand or unclear about. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| Anthony: Come to the website and leave a comment on this lesson page. |
| Echo: Right and we are always looking forward to hearing from you. |
| Anthony: Yeah leave a comment. Echo is going to give you an amazing answer that’s going to make everything very, very clear. |
| Echo: 谢谢。(Xièxiè.) |
| Anthony: Okay so with that said, from Beijing, I am Anthony. |
| Echo: 我是Echo。(Wǒ shì Echo.) |
| Anthony: Thanks for listening and we will see you next time. |
| Echo: 下次见 (Xià cì jiàn)，Bye bye. |
| Anthony: Bye bye. |
Comments
HideHave you dealt with people offering money exchange service on the street in China? They might offer you much better rate than the bank, but be careful not to get ripped off!
你好 robert groulx！
不用谢。(Bú yòng xiè.) = No need for thanks. You're welcome. 😇
谢谢 (Xièxie) for studying with us, it's great to have you here!
Let us know if you have any questions.
Kind regards,
雷文特 (Levente)
Team ChineseClass101.com
thanks for the lesson
my favorite words are 换成人民币？
robert
Hello Gerald,
Thank you for your comment. You can say
我不喜欢钱的课堂, 但是知道这些子很有用去中国的时候。现在我知道怎么中文说''我要换智利的钱'' => 我不喜欢关于钱的课堂, 但是认识这些词语对我将来去中国旅游很有用。现在我知道''我要换智利比索''用中文怎么说. I think you may want to change Chilean peso into RMB instead?
Keep it up, let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
大家好！谢谢你的课
这课很难。我不喜欢钱的课堂, 但是知道这些子很有用去中国的时候。。。现在我知道怎么中文说''我要换智利的钱'' 👍
Hello Rich,
Thank you for your comment.
Indeed exchanging money can be complicated, different banks have different practices.
Thank you for learning with us, let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
If only converting dollars to yuan was that simple. even worse converting yuan to dollars.
I believe only the Bank of China is allowed to convert dollars to yuan unless you have an account
Bring only new unmarked , no cuts, new dollars
If only converting dollars to yuan were that simple...even worse going from yuan to dollars.
Plan on 15 to 30 minutes to convert at Bank of China which I think is the only bank allowed to convert unless you have an account with the bank.
Hello, Albert Wingate,
Thank you for your comment.
您是？ means to say "Who you are?" politely.
Of course, there is no "and" in the sentence.
Welcome to you at anytime.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
This comment is for Anthony, maybe. I am guessing that you supply the English translation for some of the Chinese sentences et. al in the vocabulary section. I want to make a sincere and clear point. It is a "catch 22" Anthony. See if you agree.
This short question:
您是？
Nín shì?
And who are you?
The translation is great. If I were translating for my boss who doesn't know Chinese I would use this method to translate. I call it a loose translation. Maybe a better word would be and "enhanced" translation. However, there is no where in the Chinese where I can find "And". Now it does add to the understanding. But, the other point is that when a student is trying to discern the structure of the Chinese language he has to cope with this mechanism of clarifying or enhancing the translation. It is an important point. I look at the pinyin and try to decipher the structure of the language and match it up with the translation. It doesn't match and at times is confusing as to what the structure of the language is. I hope you do not take this as a criticism but a learning difficulty for students unversed in the Chinese language. Thank you for your thoughtfulness.
Hello, Albert Wingate,
Thank you for your posting.
Please leave us a message to share your opinion.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hello, Albert Wingate,
Offering money exchange service on the street in China is definitely illegal.
But still some people will do the crime for money.
Call the police or at least leave such people away.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Talon, my experience in Shenzhen, CN was very different. They had an outdoor teller working long hours and it took about five minutes to exchange American dollars for Renminbi. It is said the exchange rate for one dollar U.S. is about 6.8 kuai. All I needed was a passport. That was some years, maybe 7 years ago. I am guessing you were trying to exchange USD-> Chinese chunks of money.
As to the suggestion of exchanging money on the street I would be more worried about being arrested than getting ripped off. Cho, are you implying that it is legal to conduct such activities? I don't know. Sounds a little "Iffy."
Hello Talon,
Thank you for sharing your experience with us!
Really interesting information :smile:
Regards,
Laura
Team ChineseClass101.com
If you go to China through Korea, don't exchange your money there! I recently went through incheon and they told me the exchange rate was 1 USD to 5.4 and I was like no it's not, I was just in China 2 months ago there is no way that's true!
Changing it at the bank is probably the easiest, there are many many banks in China and even if you can't speak Chinese fluently someone in the bank will most likely be able to speak well enough English to help you. Like they said you will need your passport and it is kind of a tedious process. Especially if the bank is really busy.
Hi Erik,
It's 加元.
Chloe
Team ChineseClass101.com
This lesson was good as it introduced美元 US dollars, and 欧元 Euros. Can you tell me the word for Canadian dollars? Thanks,
Hi phoenix_darshan,
Thanks for all these questions. It really shows that you are serious with your Chinese study. First, we try to discuss everything that had been written into the lesson note in our podcast. However, that's not guarenteed since we have to control the length of the podcast as well. In this case, I guess they probably thought that the last grammar point was a rather easy one that needn't to be elaborated in the audio. So the pattern goes "把 + something or someone +（verb）+成 something or someone" as example sentences showed. Please let me know if you are having any trouble using it.
For the translation of “kancheng", it is generally translated as to regard as. I can't see where in the lesson note that it has been translated as "change". Please let me know if you saw it. Thanks very much.
Best,
Jane:smile:
hi there,
in the pdf file the last grammar point using cheng in conjunction with ba is not really discussed in the podcast:(
kancheng is once translated as "regard as" and once as "change", is it context that determines translation again?
thanks
Hi Alex,
Good luck with your exam. And thanks for the suggestions. I'll keep that in mind.
Jane