Learn about the quality of the air in China, what China is doing to try and improve it, and many parts of speech
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome to chineseclass101.com. I am David. |
| Echo: Hi! 大家好，我是Echo. (Hi! Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì Echo.) |
| David: Here we will teach you to speak Chinese with fun and effective lessons. |
| Echo: We will also provide you with cultural insights… |
| David: And tips that you are not going to find in the textbook. So today, we’ve got absolute beginner season 2, lesson 24. |
| Echo: Stargazing in China. |
| David: Right. This is something I have never done. We are going to find out the reason for this in a little bit and we’ve got a dialogue that takes place on a camping trip outside Beijing. Our speakers are travel companions and so they are speaking casually. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| David: Now we are going to take you to this dialogue in a sec. Before we do it though, Echo, there is something you wanted to remind people of. |
| Echo: Comment, comment, comment. |
| David: If you have a comment, if you have any questions, you can leave a message on the site or write to us at… |
| Echo: Contact us at chineseclass101.com. |
| David: And we would love to hear from you and now our dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A: 我看不见星星。(Wǒ kànbújiàn xīngxing.) |
| B: 为什么？(Wèishénme?) |
| A: 云太多了。(Yún tài duō le.) |
| B: 那不是云，是污染。(Nà bú shì yún, shì wūrǎn.) |
| David: One more time, a bit slower. |
| A: 我看不见星星。(Wǒ kànbújiàn xīngxing.) |
| B: 为什么？(Wèishénme?) |
| A: 云太多了。(Yún tài duō le.) |
| B: 那不是云，是污染。(Nà bú shì yún, shì wūrǎn.) |
| David: And now with the English. |
| A: 我看不见星星。(Wǒ kànbújiàn xīngxing.) |
| A: I can't see the stars. |
| B: 为什么？(Wèishénme?) |
| B: Why not? |
| A: 云太多了。(Yún tài duō le.) |
| A: There's so many clouds. |
| B: 那不是云，是污染。(Nà bú shì yún, shì wūrǎn.) |
| B: Those aren't clouds, that's pollution. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: Okay so this is a true to life dialogue. Pollution in Beijing can be really bad. |
| Echo: Yeah it is a big problem. |
| David: Don’t even think about the stars. I mean you are lucky sometimes that you can see the buildings that are coming up ahead of you. |
| Echo: Well you are exaggerating now. |
| David: No, no a couple of hundred meters, some days visibility is really bad. |
| Echo: Yeah but you can say that it’s lucky that you can see it. |
| David: Okay, okay on most days, you can see things. Sometimes though, it’s really bad. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Any way, even if you are not going to be a stargazer, we have a lot of vocab for you today about what is up there that you can’t see? |
| Echo: Exactly. |
| David: Let’s get to it. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| David: And now the vocab section. |
| Echo: 星星 (xīngxing) |
| David: Stars. |
| Echo: 星星。 星星。(Xīngxīng. Xīngxīng.) |
| Echo: 太阳 (tàiyáng) |
| David: Sun. |
| Echo: 太阳。太阳。((àiyáng tàiyáng) |
| Echo: 月亮 (yuèliàng) |
| David: Moon. |
| Echo: 月亮。月亮。(Yuèliàng. Yuèliàng.) |
| Echo: 云 (Yún) |
| David: Clouds. |
| Echo: 云。云。(Yún. Yún.) |
| Echo: 雾 (wù) |
| David: Fog. |
| Echo: 雾。雾。(Wù. Wù.) |
| Echo: 污染 (wūrǎn) |
| David: Pollution. |
| Echo: 污染。污染。(Wūrǎn. Wūrǎn.) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of these words and phrases. Our first word is |
| Echo: 星星 (Xīngxīng) |
| David: Stars. |
| Echo: 星星。 星星。 (Xīngxīng. Xīngxīng.) |
| David: Right and we repeat this. We doubled it up because it’s more colloquial. If you were lucky in China at night you will be able to see |
| Echo: 星星 (Xīngxīng) |
| David: Which means stars. |
| Echo: 你看，那颗星星。(Nǐ kàn, nà kē xīngxīng.) |
| David: Look at that star. We have got the measure word for stars there. It’s |
| Echo: 颗 (Kē) |
| David: Right. Look at that star. |
| Echo: 你看，那颗星星。(Nǐ kàn, nà kē xīngxīng.) |
| David: Which is about right. You will be able to see one maybe. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: And it is called the sun. So our next word is the moon. |
| Echo: 月亮 (Yuèliàng) |
| David: The moon. |
| Echo: 月亮。月亮。(Yuèliàng. Yuèliàng.) |
| David: And you are going to hear about this all the time. In fact, if you like karaoke, you will often run into a song that says, the moon represents my heart. |
| Echo: Oh yes 月亮代表我的心。(Yuèliàng dàibiǎo wǒ de xīn.) |
| David: The moon represents my heart. |
| Echo: 月亮代表我的心。(Yuèliàng dàibiǎo wǒ de xīn.) |
| David: Why does the moon represent someone’s heart? |
| Echo: I don’t know. |
| David: Maybe it’s bright, keeps shining. |
| Echo: Moon is tender. I don’t know. |
| David: Okay so in China, the moon represents people’s hearts. The next word that we’ve got is the opposite of the moon, it’s the sun. |
| Echo: 太阳 (Tàiyáng) |
| David: The sun. |
| Echo: 太阳。今天太阳很好。(Tàiyáng. Jīntiān tàiyáng hěn hǎo.) |
| David: Today, the sun is good. |
| Echo: 今天太阳很好。(Jīntiān tàiyáng hěn hǎo.) |
| David: Right, and of course that means it’s really sunny today. So we’ve got two words that are opposites. We’ve got the sun. |
| Echo: 太阳 (Tàiyáng) |
| David: And we’ve got the moon. |
| Echo: 月亮 (Yuèliàng) |
| David: Blocking these sometimes, you will have clouds. |
| Echo: 云 (Yún) |
| David: Clouds. |
| Echo: 云。 (Yún.) |
| David: Although not so much in Beijing, it’s really dry. You are much more likely to get pollution. |
| Echo: 污染。(Wūrǎn.) |
| David: Let’s hear that slowly. |
| Echo: 污染。(Wūrǎn.) |
| David: First tone, third tone. |
| Echo: 污染。(Wūrǎn.) |
| David: You can say, the sky is very polluted. |
| Echo: 空气很污染。(Kōngqì hěn wūrǎn.) |
| David: The sky is very polluted. |
| Echo: 空气很污染。(Kōngqì hěn wūrǎn.) Yeah actually it’s more like the air. |
| David: Yeah and hopefully the government will do something to try to get this under control. |
| Echo: It’s getting better. |
| David: Any way, one problem actually though is in Beijing, we don’t get a lot of high clouds. Sometimes you will get this fog that rolls in. |
| Echo: 雾 (wù) |
| David: Fog. |
| Echo: 雾 (wù) |
| David: And that’s fourth tone. |
| Echo: 雾 (wù) |
| David: So often, it’s easy to confuse that with a word for pollution because people will say it’s very polluted. |
| Echo: 污染 (Wūrǎn) |
| David: Or it’s very foggy. |
| Echo: 雾。(Wù.) |
| David: So you’ve got to be able to listen for those tones. So a quick review. We’ve got the word stars. |
| Echo: 星星 (Xīngxīng) |
| David: Moon. |
| Echo: 月亮 (Yuèliàng) |
| David: Sun |
| Echo: 太阳 (tàiyáng) |
| David: Clouds |
| Echo: 云 (yún) |
| David: Pollution |
| Echo: 污染 (Wūrǎn) |
| David: And Fog. |
| Echo: 雾 (Wù) |
| David: And with that, let’s get to our grammar section. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: Today, we want to focus on the sentence pattern. |
| Echo: 太...了 (Tài...Le ) |
| David: Right it’s the 太什么什么了 (Tài shénme shénmeliǎo) pattern where 什么什么 (Shénme shénme) is going to be an adjective. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: For instance, too many. |
| Echo: 太多了 (Tài duōle) |
| David: Too expensive. |
| Echo: 太贵了 (Tài duōle) |
| David: Oh it’s so good. |
| Echo: 太好了 (Tài duōle) |
| David: Now you will notice our pattern here. We are going to put our subject at the front of the sentence. For instance, you. |
| Echo: 你. (Nǐ.) |
| David: And then we’re going to say 太 (Tài) and the adjective plus 了. (Le.) |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: For instance, you are really great. |
| Echo: 你太好了。(Nǐ tài hǎole.) |
| David: You are so beautiful. |
| Echo: 你太美了。 (Nǐ tàiměile.) |
| David: You are so pretty. |
| Echo: 你太漂亮了。(Nǐ tài piàoliangle.) And David 你太烦了。(Nǐ tài fánle.) |
| David: Oh that’s not nice. but it’s really, really similar pattern. A lot of people will mess this up because they leave off that closing 了. (Le.) |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Don’t do that. Get in the habit of saying 太- (Tài-) adjective-了。(Le.) |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: There are too many cars. |
| Echo: 车太多了。(Chē tài duōle.) |
| David: There are too many people. |
| Echo: 人太多了。(Chē tài duōle.) |
| David: There is not enough work. |
| Echo: 工作太少了。 (Gōngzuò tài shǎole.) |
| David: There is not enough money. |
| Echo: 钱太少了。Qián tài shǎole. |
| David: A really, really common sentence pattern and again we do want to stress, don’t forget that 了. (Le.) That said though, it’s really easy pattern. |
| Echo: Yes. |
Outro |
| David: And that does it for today for us actually. So before we go, we want to remind you, we have a voice recording tool on chineseclass101.com. Just go to the site, record your voice and you will be able to compare how it sounds with Echo and all of her native speakers here. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| David: Okay this is a great way to really improve your tones. That being said though, we are all out of time. From Beijing, I am David. |
| Echo: 我是Echo. (Wǒ shì Echo.) |
| David: Thanks a lot for listening and we hope to hear from you. |
| Echo: Bye, bye. |
| David: Take care guys, bye. |
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