Learn the varying degree of the Chinese verb "to die"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Hi everyone and welcome back to chineseclass101.com. The fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn Chinese. I am David and I am joined in the studio here by |
| Echo: Hi! 大家好，我是(Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì)Echo. |
| David: By Echo right. So we’ve got absolute beginner season 2, lesson 10. |
| Echo: What’s the rush in China? |
| David: Right. It’s about when you are with someone and you are walking way too fast. |
| Echo: Like David. |
| David: Yes. Or way too slow like Echo. |
| Echo: Maybe. |
| David: So.. |
| Echo: This was a Rush in China. We should change it to vs. Rush in Canada. |
| David: Any way, in this lesson, we are going to learn a great figurative part of speech, one to die for and we’ve got a conversation here that takes place on a sidewalk. |
| Echo: Right and the conversation is between two friends who walk at different speeds. |
| David: Right, in any event, our speakers are friends. So they are speaking casual Mandarin as always. |
| Echo: That’s true. |
| David: Okay so we are going to take you to the dialogue in a sec. Before we do, as always, we want to remind you one of the easiest ways of making the stuff stick is to get your hands on the premium PDF transcripts. |
| Echo: 没错(Méi cuò) |
| David: Review it the day after you listen to this podcast. |
| Echo: It will stick in your mind. |
| David: Yeah it really is going to help. With that though, let’s go to the dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A: 你慢点儿。(Nǐ màn diǎnr.) |
| B: 你快点儿。(Nǐ kuài diǎnr.) |
| A: 你走路太快。(Nǐ zǒulù tài kuài.) |
| B: 你太慢。(Nǐ tài màn.) |
| A: 我累死了！(Wǒ lèi sǐ le!) |
| David: One more time, a bit slower. |
| A: 你慢点儿。(Nǐ màn diǎnr.) |
| B: 你快点儿。(Nǐ kuài diǎnr.) |
| A: 你走路太快。(Nǐ zǒulù tài kuài.) |
| B: 你太慢。(Nǐ tài màn.) |
| A: 我累死了！(Wǒ lèi sǐ le!) |
| David: And now with the English. |
| A: 你慢点儿。(Nǐ màn diǎnr.) |
| David: Slow down. |
| B: 你快点儿。(Nǐ kuài diǎnr.) |
| David: Go a bit faster. |
| A: 你走路太快。(Nǐ zǒulù tài kuài.) |
| David: You're walking too fast. |
| B: 你太慢。(Nǐ tài màn.) |
| David: You're too slow. |
| A: 我累死了！(Wǒ lèi sǐ le!) |
| David: I'm exhausted. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Echo: That’s a real conversation between David and I. |
| David: It looks like I have had that experience. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: It’s because you walk so slowly. |
| Echo: No you walk too fast. |
| David: Like that’s a truth. |
| Echo: 你太快(Nǐ tài kuài) |
| David: Any way our vocab today is focusing on one phrase that we heard a lot of in this lesson. |
| Echo: 点儿(Diǎn er) |
| David: Right it means a bit. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: And we’ve got lot of phrases for doing things faster, slower and other things like that. |
| Echo: 没错(Méi cuò) |
| David: So let’s go. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| David: And now the vocab section. |
| Echo: 快点儿(kuài diǎnr) [natural native speed] |
| David: hurry up |
| Echo: 快点儿(kuài diǎnr) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 快点儿(kuài diǎnr) [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 慢点儿(màn diǎnr) [natural native speed] |
| David: slow down |
| Echo: 慢点儿(màn diǎnr) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 慢点儿(màn diǎnr) [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 早点儿(zǎo diǎnr) [natural native speed] |
| David: a little earlier |
| Echo: 早点儿(zǎo diǎnr) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 早点儿(zǎo diǎnr) [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 晚点儿(wǎn diǎnr) [natural native speed] |
| David: a little later |
| Echo: 晚点儿(wǎn diǎnr) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 晚点儿(wǎn diǎnr) [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 大声点儿(dàshēng diǎnr) [natural native speed] |
| David: a little louder |
| Echo: 大声点儿(dàshēng diǎnr) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 大声点儿(dàshēng diǎnr) [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 小声点儿(xiǎoshēng diǎnr) [natural native speed] |
| David: a little softer |
| Echo: 小声点儿(xiǎoshēng diǎnr) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 小声点儿(xiǎoshēng diǎnr) [natural native speed] |
| Echo: 死(sǐ) [natural native speed] |
| David: to die |
| Echo: 死(sǐ) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Echo: 死(sǐ) [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: With the exception of that last word, you may have guessed what we are going to be talking about in our vocab section. Right it’s |
| Echo: 点儿(Diǎn er) |
| David: And it means a bit. |
| Echo: Right 点儿(Diǎn er) |
| David: And notice the 儿(Er) sound there. |
| Echo: 点儿(Diǎn er) |
| David: Right it’s that R sound at the end of the word. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So we heard the word for hurry up |
| Echo: 快点儿(Kuài diǎn er) |
| David: Which is an adjective fast... |
| Echo: 快(Kuài) |
| David: Plus |
| Echo: 点儿(Diǎn er) |
| David: And we use this to give orders. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Like hurry up. |
| Echo: 快点儿(Kuài diǎn er) |
| David: Hurry up, okay? |
| Echo: 快点儿好吗？(Kuài diǎn er hǎo ma?) |
| David: Unless you yourself are going slower than someone in which case you may want to say |
| Echo: 慢点儿(Màn diǎn er) |
| David: Slowdown. |
| Echo: 慢点儿(Màn diǎn er) |
| David: Go a little slower. |
| Echo: 你慢点儿(Nǐ màn diǎn er) |
| David: And we’ve added the subject here to make it clear to who we are talking about. |
| Echo: Right it’s you. |
| David: You. |
| Echo: 你(Nǐ) |
| David: Go a bit slower. |
| Echo: 慢点儿. 你慢点儿.(Màn diǎn er. Nǐ màn diǎn er.) |
| David: Right. We also have a bit earlier |
| Echo: 早点儿(Zǎodiǎn er) |
| David: A bit earlier |
| Echo: 早点儿(Zǎodiǎn er) |
| David: And we are usually going to put this in front of a verb. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: As in come home earlier. |
| Echo: 早点儿回家吧(Zǎodiǎn er huí jiā ba) |
| David: Or I suppose you might say come home later. |
| Echo: 晚点儿(Wǎndiǎn er) |
| David: Come home later. |
| Echo: 晚点儿回家吧(Wǎndiǎn er huí jiā ba) |
| David: Right. When you are in China and you are talking in Chinese, you are going to use these next too a lot too. |
| Echo: 大声点儿(Dàshēng diǎn er) |
| David: Speak up. |
| Echo: 大声点儿(Dàshēng diǎn er) |
| David: And that’s literally loud or sound a bit. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Right. So if you can’t hear what someone is saying, tell them |
| Echo: 大声点儿(Dàshēng diǎn er) |
| David: Likewise if someone is speaking too loud, you could say |
| Echo: 小声点儿(Xiǎoshēng diǎn er) |
| David: So we have got big sound a bit. |
| Echo: 大声点儿(Dàshēng diǎn er) |
| David: And small sound a bit. |
| Echo: 小声点儿(Xiǎoshēng diǎn er) |
| David: Speak louder |
| Echo: 大声点儿(Dàshēng diǎn er) |
| David: Speaker more softly. |
| Echo: 小声点儿(Xiǎoshēng diǎn er) |
| David: So our core vocab are these six useful phrases. |
| Echo: 快点儿，慢点儿，早点儿，晚点儿，大声点儿，小声点儿(Kuài diǎn er, màn diǎn er, zǎodiǎn er, wǎndiǎn er, dàshēng diǎn er, xiǎoshēng diǎn er) |
| David: Right. Now let’s go on to the grammar section. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: Okay at the beginning of this lesson, we said that we were going to teach you a Chinese figure of speech. What is that? |
| Echo: It’s 死(Sǐ) |
| David: Right and it means to die. |
| Echo: Yeah don’t be scared. |
| David: No it’s not literally that. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: This is something that we are going to put after adjectives to exaggerate them. |
| Echo: Right 死(Sǐ) |
| David: In the dialog, we heard this sentence. |
| Echo: 我累死了(Wǒ lèi sǐle) |
| David: I am exhausted. |
| Echo: 我累死了(Wǒ lèi sǐle) |
| David: I am exhausted. |
| Echo: 我累死了(Wǒ lèi sǐle) |
| David: And literally that’s I am so tired. I am going to die. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Right. There are two things to note. The first is that this |
| Echo: 死(Sǐ) and 了(Le) |
| David: Need to go together. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: The second thing is that we can use this with almost any adjective. For instance, you could say, I am starving to death. |
| Echo: 我饿死了(Wǒ è sǐle) |
| David: And in China, you will hear people say this a lot. |
| Echo: Right especially me. 我饿死了(Wǒ è sǐle) |
| David: Right. I am tired, I am hungry. |
| Echo: Good. |
| David: We’ve got another example here with busy. |
| Echo: 我忙死了(Wǒ máng sǐle) |
| David: I am so busy, I am dying of it. |
| Echo: Right 我忙死了，别烦我(Wǒ máng sǐle, bié fán wǒ) |
| David: And you will hear these in more complicated sentences too. |
| Echo: 今天我忙死了(Jīntiān wǒ máng sǐle) |
| David: Today I am really busy. |
| Echo: 今天我忙死了(Jīntiān wǒ máng sǐle) |
| David: Right. Note the word over there. Our subject is coming before the adjective and 死了(Sǐle) |
| Echo: That’s right. |
| David: In some cases though, you are going to hear this flipped around. You are going to hear an object put in between 死(Sǐ) and 了(Le). |
| Echo: Like 忙死我了(Máng sǐ wǒle) |
| David: Right busy to death me. |
| Echo: Yeah it’s just very colloquial. So you can just remember it. You don’t need to know like why exactly it is because there is no why. |
| David: Yeah and it’s – what it means is it means, it’s happening to me. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: What’s getting busy to death is me. |
| Echo: Right. It’s just very, very colloquial. |
| David: Yeah. We’ve got another example of this for you. |
| Echo: Like 气死我了(Qì sǐ wǒle) |
| David: Oh you are driving me crazy. |
| Echo: 气死我了(Qì sǐ wǒle) |
| David: And 气(Qì) there is 生气(Shēngqì) |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Anger. |
| Echo: 气死我了(Qì sǐ wǒle) |
| David: Right. Finally you might say |
| Echo: 急死我了(Jísǐ wǒle) |
| David: Which means to worry or agitate. So if you wanted to tell someone, you are worrying me to death. |
| Echo: Right 急死我了(Jísǐ wǒle) |
| David: Right you are worrying me to death. |
| Echo: 急死我了(Jísǐ wǒle) |
| David: So to review, today we’ve learned a new figure of speech. |
| Echo: 死了(Sǐle) |
| David: We stick this after adjectives to exaggerate the adjective. |
| Echo: 没错(Méi cuò) |
| David: I am really tired. |
| Echo: 我累死了(Wǒ lèi sǐle) |
| David: I am really hungry. |
| Echo: 我饿死了(Wǒ è sǐle) |
| David: I am really busy. |
| Echo: 我忙死了(Wǒ máng sǐle) |
| David: And if someone is making you that way, you can also say |
| Echo: 气死我了(Qì sǐ wǒle) |
| David: You are angering me to death. |
| Echo: Or 急死我了(Jísǐ wǒle) |
| David: You are getting me agitated to death. This is a really colloquial way of speaking but you are going to hear this all the time. |
| Echo: Right. |
Outro |
| David: And with that, that’s our lesson for today. Before we leave you, we want to remind you. At chineseclass101.com, we’ve got an audio review track. You can use this to practice your pronunciation. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So check that out chineseclass101.com. For now though from Beijing, I am David. |
| Echo: 我是(Wǒ shì)Echo. |
| David: Thanks a lot for listening and we will see you on the site. |
| Echo: Bye bye. |
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