Learn how to buy a train ticket and learn about times of the day
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Echo: Hi, I’m Echo. |
| David: I’m David, and welcome back to ChineseClass101.com. This is Lesson 25 in our Absolute Beginner Series, Getting a Train Ticket in China. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So today, we’ve got a dialogue which involves buying a train ticket at the train station. |
| Echo: Right. And you will also learn about times of day. |
| David: Right. We’ve got a conversation that takes place at the ticket booth between a ticket seller and a traveler. |
| Echo: Right. And they are speaking casual Mandarin. |
| David: Right, as always. Now, before we get to the dialogue, we want to remind you, if you’re listening on an iPod... |
| Echo: Or an iTouch or iPhone... |
| David: You can click on the center button of the iPod or just tap the screen of the iTouch or iPhone and you can see the lesson notes while you listen. |
| Echo: Right. Read along while you listen. |
| David: Give it a shot. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Let’s go on to the dialogue. |
| DIALOGUES |
| David: 我要一张到北京的票。(Wǒ yào yì zhāng dào Běijīng de piào.) |
| Echo: 今天的吗？(Jīntiān de ma?) |
| David: 对。(Duì.) |
| Echo: 你要上午11点的，下午3点的，还是晚上7点的？(Nǐ yào shàngwǔ shíyī diǎn de, xiàwǔ sān diǎn de, háishì wǎnshàng qī diǎn de?) |
| David: 7点的。(Qī diǎn de.) |
| David: One more time, a bit slower. |
| David: 我要一张到北京的票。(Wǒ yào yì zhāng dào Běijīng de piào.) |
| Echo: 今天的吗？(Jīntiān de ma?) |
| David: 对。(Duì.) |
| Echo: 你要上午11点的，下午3点的，还是晚上7点的？(Nǐ yào shàngwǔ shíyī diǎn de, xiàwǔ sān diǎn de, háishì wǎnshàng qī diǎn de?) |
| David: 7点的。(Qī diǎn de.) |
| David: And now, with the English translation. |
| Echo: 我要一张到北京的票。(Wǒ yào yì zhāng dào Běijīng de piào.) |
| David: I want one ticket to Beijing. |
| Echo: 今天的吗？(Jīntiān de ma?) |
| David: For today? |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: Yes. |
| Echo: 你要上午11点的，下午3点的，还是晚上7点的？(Nǐ yào shàngwǔ shíyī diǎn de, xiàwǔ sān diǎn de, háishì wǎnshàng qī diǎn de?) |
| David: Do you want the one at 11:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the afternoon or 7:00 in the evening? |
| Echo: 7点的。(Qī diǎn de.) |
| David: The 7 o’clock one. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: I love taking the train in China. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: But some of them, they take a while. I was once on the hard seater to Inner Mongolia which is only about eight hours and that was, that was not a lot of fun. |
| Echo: Yeah. But it’s a good way like to meet a lot of people there. |
| David: That’s true. If you do take the train, short distances, you are going to meet a lot of Chinese people who are going to be really happy to talk to you. |
| Echo: In Chinese. |
| David: In Chinese. Anyway, we’ve got a lot of vocabulary here for buying tickets and telling times. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So let’s get to that now. |
| Echo: Okay. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| David: And now, the vocab section. |
| Echo: 要(yào) |
| David: To want. |
| Echo: 張(zhāng) |
| David: Measure word. |
| Echo: 到(dào) |
| David: To. |
| Echo: 北京(Běijīng) |
| David: Beijing. |
| Echo: 的(de) |
| David: A possessive or subordinating particle. |
| Echo: 票(piào) |
| David: Ticket. |
| Echo: 今天(jīntiān) |
| David: Today. |
| Echo: 上午(shàngwǔ) |
| David: Morning. |
| Echo: 下午(xiàwǔ) |
| David: Afternoon. |
| Echo: 晚上(wǎnshàng) |
| David: Evening. |
| Echo: 還是(háishì) |
| David: Or. |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| David: Okay. So today, we have a lot of time words for you. |
| Echo: Right. Schedule, schedule, schedule. |
| David: Right. We’re going to start out with possibly with the most important one. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: And that’s the word for today. |
| Echo: 今天(jīntiān). |
| David: Which is really important to know if you’re train is leaving today. |
| Echo: 今天(jīntiān). |
| David: Assuming it is, you also want to find out what time of the day. |
| Echo: Definitely. |
| David: Right. So the word we heard from morning was... |
| Echo: 上午(shàngwǔ). |
| David: Let’s hear that again, “Morning.” |
| Echo: 上午(shàngwǔ). |
| David: We can put these together and get, “Today, morning.” |
| Echo: 今天上午(Jīntiān shàngwǔ) |
| David: This morning. |
| Echo: 今天上午(Jīntiān shàngwǔ) |
| David: So this morning is literally “today morning.” |
| Echo: 今天上午(Jīntiān shàngwǔ) |
| David: So now you should know how to say, “This afternoon.” |
| Echo: 今天下午(Jīntiān xiàwǔ) |
| David: Right. That’s literally “today afternoon.” |
| Echo: 今天下午 / 上午 / 下午(Jīntiān xiàwǔ/ shàngwǔ/ xiàwǔ) |
| David: Technically 上午(Shàngwǔ) is late morning. |
| Echo: Yeah, a bit... |
| David: It starts maybe about 10 o’clock. |
| Echo: That’s true. |
| David: So when you just get out of bed and when you have breakfast... |
| Echo: We call that, 早上(Zǎoshang) |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: 早上(Zǎoshang) |
| David: So you could say, “This morning.” |
| Echo: 今天早上(Jīntiān zǎoshang) |
| David: Right, which would be sometime today before about 10 o’clock. |
| Echo: Right. 今天早上(Jīntiān zǎoshang) |
| David: In China, one common say people say good morning is to say... |
| Echo: 早(Zǎo) |
| David: Which is a short form of... |
| Echo: 早上好(Zǎoshang hǎo) |
| David: One other really useful word is the word for evening. |
| Echo: 晚上(Wǎnshàng) |
| David: As in the phrase, “See you in the evening.” |
| Echo: 晚上见！(Wǎnshàng jiàn!) |
| David: Or, “This evening.” |
| Echo: 今天晚上(Jīntiān wǎnshàng) |
| David: Okay. So by now we’ve got four times of day, “Early morning.” |
| Echo: 早上(Zǎoshang) |
| David: Late morning. |
| Echo: 上午(Shàngwǔ) |
| David: And then afternoon. |
| Echo: 下午(Xiàwǔ) |
| David: And finally, we have evening. |
| Echo: 晚上(Wǎnshàng) |
| David: As is, “Good evening.” |
| Echo: 晚上好(Wǎnshàng hǎo) |
| David: Or, “See you this evening.” |
| Echo: 晚上见(Wǎnshàng jiàn) |
| David: Right. Now, we know the times of day, let’s move on to the grammar section where we’re going to use the stuff. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Echo: All right. We’ve got a great grammar section today. |
| David: We do. It’s all... |
| Echo: What it’s about? |
| David: It’s all about the times that we ran into in the dialogue. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Because they’re not just times, there’s something funky going on. But before we look at that, let’s take a look at this sentence from the dialogue. |
| Echo: 我要一张到北京的票。(Wǒ yào yī zhāng dào běijīng de piào.) |
| David: Now, as we remember... |
| Echo: 要(Yào) |
| David: Means, “to want.” |
| Echo: Uh-hmm, like 我要水(Wǒ yào shuǐ). |
| David: “I want water” and in the summer, you will definitely be saying that. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: But in this case, he wants one ticket to Beijing. |
| Echo: 一张到北京的票(Yī zhāng dào běijīng de piào) |
| David: Okay. Getting the difficult thing out of the way, we’ve got a measure word in there which is for ticket. |
| Echo: 张(Zhāng) |
| David: It’s anything that’s flat and square... |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Ticket is like a piece of paper. |
| Echo: Yeah. 一张票(Yī zhāng piào) |
| David: But in this case, it’s not any ticket, it’s a ticket to Beijing. |
| Echo: 到北京的票 ... 一张到北京的票(Dào běijīng de piào... Yī zhāng dào běijīng de piào) |
| David: Right. So what we want to focus on today is this particle 的(De). |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Now, technically, this is called the subordinating particle which is a pretty nasty way of saying, it makes the thing that comes after, belong to or subordinate of the thing that comes before. |
| Echo: Yes. So this 票 is 到北京的(Piào is dào běijīng de). |
| David: Right. The ticket is subordinate to, to Beijing. It belongs to the category of things that is to Beijing. |
| Echo: Right. And we’ll see this again later in the dialogue. |
| David: Right. When they say, “What times the tickets are?” |
| Echo: "上午11点的(Shàngwǔ 11 diǎn de)，下午3点的(Xiàwǔ 3 diǎn de)，还是晚上7点的(Háishì wǎnshàng 7 diǎn de)" |
| David: If we cut out that last 的(De) we could see the actual times of the tickets. |
| Echo: 上午11点(Shàngwǔ 11 diǎn) |
| David: 11 o’clock in the morning. |
| Echo: 下午3点(Xiàwǔ 3 diǎn) |
| David: 3:00 in the afternoon. |
| Echo: 晚上7点(Wǎnshàng 7 diǎn) |
| David: 7:00 in the evening. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Now, this stuff you guys should already know because we covered basic time in Lesson 5. |
| Echo: But in the dialogue, that actually said, 上午11点的(Shàngwǔ 11 diǎn de), 下午3点的(Xiàwǔ 3 diǎn de), 晚上7点的...(Wǎnshàng 7 diǎn de...) |
| David: Right. Something is up. This is Lesson 25, so we’re getting tricky here. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: We want to tell you what that 的(De) is doing because you’re going to run into this all the time. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Now, it’s the same thing we’re seeing here that we saw on the first example we talked about. |
| Echo: Right, so it should be 上午11点的票(Shàngwǔ 11 diǎn de piào). 下午3点的票(Xiàwǔ 3 diǎn de piào) and 晚上7点的票(Wǎnshàng 7 diǎn de piào) |
| David: Right. We’ve still got the subordinating relationship. All we’ve done is we’ve left out the word for ticket. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Because we already know we’re talking about a ticket. So, when you run into this, when you’ve got a 的(De) at the end of something like that... |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: It’s a clue that the Chinese speaker is leaving something out. |
| Echo: Right. So like object of 的(De) we already know. |
| David: Yeah. It becomes a noun or a noun phrase. |
| Echo: 上午11点的(Shàngwǔ 11 diǎn de) |
| David: The one at 11:00 AM. |
| Echo: 下午3点的(Xiàwǔ 3 diǎn de) |
| David: The one at 3:00 PM. Now, what that one is, it’s up to you to figure out from context. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Okay? So, this is a bit tricky. Now, you know what’s going on. You guys should be able to master it. |
| David: With that though, that about does it for us for today. Remember, before you go, you can leave us a comment on this lesson. |
| Echo: Right. If you have any questions or feedback... |
| David: Right, please just leave us a comment. It’s easy to do, come to... |
| Echo: ChineseClass101.com. |
| David: Click on comments... |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Enter your comment, a name and that’s it. Okay? From Beijing, I’m David. |
| Echo: I’m Echo. |
| David: Thanks a lot for listening and we will see you next time. |
Outro |
|---|
| David:再见!(Zàijiàn!) |
| Echo:再见!(Zàijiàn!) |
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