Learn about written Chinese
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 |
| Jain: Hello everyone. I am Jain. Welcome to chineseclass101.com |
| David: Right, we have Aussie Jain. You spent some time in Australia? |
| Jain: That’s right. I actually just recently came back to Beijing, my hometown. |
| David: And Jain is subbing for Echo today although we are going to hear more from Jain in the future. |
| Jain: Yeah. |
| David: And we’ve got a lesson for you today. It is absolute beginner season 2, lesson 13. |
| Jain: The Clueless Chinese Linguist. |
| David: Right. This is a dialogue that takes place in a bar. |
| Jain: Yeah and in that, we will learn all about different languages. |
| David: Yeah and we’ve got a conversation between two people, one of whom claims not to be able to speak Chinese. |
| Jain: Well, we will find out about that. |
| David: It’s a bit strange. |
| Jain: Yeah. And the speakers, both the speakers are actually the same age. So they are speaking in casual tone as always. |
| David: Yeah. So we have got this dialogue for you. We are going to take you there in a sec. Before we do as always, we want to remind you, our premium transcripts have all of the stuff written down. A really good way to learn is to print this out or follow it along as you listen. That being said though, let’s get to the dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A: 你会说英语吗？(Nǐ huì shuō yīngyǔ ma?) |
| B: 不会。(Bú huì.) |
| A: 你会说中文吗？(Nǐ huì shuō zhōngwén ma?) |
| B: 不会。(Bú huì.) |
| A: 骗子!(Piànzi!) |
| David: One more time, a bit slower. |
| A: 你会说英语吗？(Nǐ huì shuō yīngyǔ ma?) |
| B: 不会。(Bú huì.) |
| A: 你会说中文吗？(Nǐ huì shuō zhōngwén ma?) |
| B: 不会。(Bú huì.) |
| A: 骗子!(Piànzi!) |
| David: And now with the English. |
| A: 你会说英语吗？(Nǐ huì shuō yīngyǔ ma?) |
| A: Can you speak English? |
| B: 不会。(Bú huì.) |
| B: No. |
| A: 你会说中文吗？(Nǐ huì shuō zhōngwén ma?) |
| A: Can you speak Chinese? |
| B: 不会。(Bú huì.) |
| B: No. |
| A: 骗子!(Piànzi!) |
| A: Liar! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: So a strange dialogue. |
| Jain: It’s a fun dialogue. |
| David: Yeah he is lying though. I mean he speaks Chinese. |
| Jain: Well…. |
| David: Well I guess you could say, maybe he is – maybe he is not from Beijing and he speaks Chinese but not the standard dialect. |
| Jain: That’s one of the possibilities and also a lot of Chinese who also speak Mandarin with very, very heavy accent. |
| David: Yeah so we’ve got a lot of vocab today. |
| Jain: Yeah. |
| David: Which is about languages. |
| Jain: That’s right. |
| David: And we’ve got a grammar point about being able to do things but first why don’t we go through the vocab for all of these languages. |
| Jain: Sounds good. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| David: And now the vocab section. |
| Jain: 汉语。(Hànyǔ.)[natural native speed] |
| David: Chinese. |
| Jain: 汉语。(Hànyǔ.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jain: 汉语。(Hànyǔ.)[natural native speed] |
| Jain: 英语。(Hànyǔ.)[natural native speed] |
| David: English. |
| Jain: 英语。(Yīngyǔ.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jain: 英语。(Yīngyǔ.)[natural native speed] |
| Jain: 英文。(Yīngyǔ.)[natural native speed] |
| David: Written English. |
| Jain: 英文。(Yīngwén.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jain: 英文。(Yīngwén.)[natural native speed] |
| Jain: 中文。(Yīngwén.)[natural native speed] |
| David: Written Chinese. |
| Jain: 中文。(Zhōngwén.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jain: 中文。(Zhōngwén.)[natural native speed] |
| Jain: 法语。(Zhōngwén.)[natural native speed] |
| David: French. |
| Jain: 法语。(Fǎyǔ.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jain: 法语。(Fǎyǔ.)[natural native speed] |
| Jain: 德语。(Fǎyǔ.)[natural native speed] |
| David: German. |
| Jain: 德语。(Déyǔ.)[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Jain:德语。(Déyǔ.)[natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: So our vocab today is about languages. |
| Jain: Yeah. |
| David: And we’ve got a bunch of them in here. The first word we want to highlight is |
| Jain: 英语。(Yīngyǔ.) |
| David: Right which is the language we all speak. |
| Jain: 英语。(Yīngyǔ.) |
| David: Right and 英国 means Britain. |
| Jain: 英国。(Yīngguó.) |
| David: Which is Britain. |
| Jain: 英国(Yīngguó) That’s right. |
| David: So if you are in China and you can’t really speak Chinese, you might want to tell people, I can speak English. |
| Jain: 我会说英语。(Wǒ huì shuō yīngyǔ.) |
| David: I can speak English. |
| Jain: 我会说英语。(Wǒ huì shuō yīngyǔ.) |
| David: Our second language today is Chinese. |
| Jain: 汉语。(Hànyǔ.) |
| David: Once again Chinese. |
| Jain: 汉语。(Hànyǔ.) |
| David: And this is literally the You are the language of the hand people. |
| Jain: Which is the old word for Chinese I guess. |
| David: Yes the Chinese ethnicity is hand. |
| Jain: That’s right. |
| David: So once more Chinese. |
| Jain: 汉语。(Hànyǔ.) |
| David: So if you come to China and you start speaking Chinese, you are guaranteed to hear this next sentence. |
| Jain: 你的汉语不错。(Nǐ de hànyǔ bùcuò.) |
| David: Your Chinese isn’t bad. |
| Jain: 你的汉语不错。(Nǐ de hànyǔ bùcuò.) |
| David: Right, your Chinese isn’t bad. |
| Jain: David, do you hear this a lot? |
| David: Less and less. They really start you out with that but the better you get actually, the more honest people are. |
| Jain: Right. We are just being… |
| David: They’re like your Chinese, it’s okay. |
| Jain: We are just being polite. |
| David: Yeah, yeah but that’s the word for the Chinese spoken language. |
| Jain: 汉语。(Hànyǔ.) |
| David: Every now and then, you will hear this referred to as |
| Jain: 国语。(Guóyǔ.) |
| David: Which means the national language although technically this is more commonly used in Taiwan. |
| Jain: That’s right. |
| David: Right. And you are also going to hear people say Mandarin as |
| Jain: 普通话。(Pǔtōnghuà.) |
| David: So again three ways. |
| Jain: 汉语，国语，普通话。(Hànyǔ, guóyǔ, pǔtōnghuà.) |
| David: Our next word is a more formal way to say Chinese. |
| Jain: Yes 中文，中文。(Zhōngwén, zhōngwén.) |
| David: And anything that ends with 文(Wén) is technically referring to the written language. |
| Jain: 中文。(Zhōngwén.) |
| David: Sometimes people will say, can you speak 中文？(Zhōngwén?) |
| Jain: 是的。(Shì de.) |
| David: Right. So you will hear sentences like |
| Jain: 他的中文很好。(Tā de zhōngwén hěn hǎo.) |
| David: His Chinese is very good. |
| Jain: 他的中文很好。(Tā de zhōngwén hěn hǎo.) |
| David: And people will also refer to written English as |
| Jain: 英文。(Yīngwén.) |
| David: Okay there is a pattern here. We are picking it up. Our next two languages are French. |
| Jain: 法语。(Fǎyǔ.) |
| David: French. |
| Jain: 法语。(Fǎyǔ.) |
| David: Which comes from France. |
| Jain: 法国。(Fàguó.) |
| David: Right. So you might say French people speak French. |
| Jain: 法国人说法语。(Fàguó rén shuō fǎyǔ.) |
| David: French people speak French. |
| Jain:法国人说法语。(Fàguó rén shuō fǎyǔ.) |
| David: And our last language was German. |
| Jain: 德语。(Déyǔ.) |
| David: Which comes from Germany. |
| Jain: 德国。(Déguó.) |
| David: So you can have the sentence German people speak German. |
| Jain: 德国人说德语。(Déguó rén shuō déyǔ.) |
| David: German people speak German. |
| Jain: 德国人说德语。(Déguó rén shuō déyǔ.) |
| David: But there is another way of saying that that’s closer to our dialogue. |
| Jain: 德国人会说德语。(Déguó rén huì shuō déyǔ.) |
| David: Right. If you stick in that |
| Jain: 会。(Huì.) |
| David: And that’s what we are going to talk about in today’s grammar section. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: Okay our grammar point today is all about one character. |
| Jain: 会。(Huì.) |
| David: Let’s hear that again. |
| Jain: 会。(Huì.) |
| David: This means to be able to do something. |
| Jain: 会。(Huì.) |
| David: As in the sentence. |
| Jain: 你会说中文吗？(Nǐ huì shuō zhōngwén ma?) |
| David: Can you speak Chinese? |
| Jain: 你会说中文吗？ 会(Nǐ huì shuō zhōngwén ma? Huì) has a specific meaning though. |
| David: Right. It’s to be able to do something that takes time and practice to learn. For instance, speaking a foreign language. |
| Jain: 会说法语。(Huì shuō fǎyǔ.) |
| David: To be able to speak French. |
| Jain: 会说普通话。(Huì shuō pǔtōnghuà.) |
| David: To be able to speak Chinese. Other things that you can 会 are playing the piano. |
| Jain: 会弹钢琴。(Huì dàn gāngqín.) |
| David: Or cooking food. |
| Jain: 会做饭。(Huì zuò fàn.) |
| David: So we’ve got a really simple grammar structure here. |
| Jain: 是的。(Shì de.) |
| David: All we are doing is we are taking 会 and we are sticking it before our verb. |
| Jain: Such as会弹钢琴。(Huì dàn gāngqín.) |
| David: To be able to 弹钢琴。(Dàn gāngqín.) |
| Jain: 会弹钢琴。(Huì dàn gāngqín) |
| David: To play the Piano. So that’s if you can do something like I can speak Chinese. |
| Jain: 我会说中文。(Wǒ huì shuō zhōngwén.) |
| David: But what if you can’t? What if you want to say, I can’t speak Chinese? |
| Jain: It’s very simple. Just stick 不(Bù) in front of 会(Huì) to become 不会。(Bù huì.) |
| David: Right. I can’t speak Chinese. |
| Jain: 我不会说中文。(Wǒ bù huì shuō zhōngwén.) |
| David: I can’t play the Piano. |
| Jain:我不会弹钢琴。(Wǒ bù huì dàn gāngqín.) |
| David: So we are almost at the end of our grammar point. There is one more thing we want to mention which is using this to ask questions. |
| Jain: Yeah. |
| David: In the dialog, we heard this in a question. |
| Jain: 你会说中文吗？(Nǐ huì shuō zhōngwén ma?) |
| David: We have already learned 吗 being used to ask questions. We put it at the end of the statement. So you speak Chinese. |
| Jain: 你会说中文。(Nǐ huì shuō zhōngwén.) |
| David: Becomes the question. |
| Jain: 你会说中文吗？(Nǐ huì shuō zhōngwén ma?) |
| David: But there is another way to do this. |
| Jain: Yeah. 你会不会说中文？(Nǐ huì bù huì shuō zhōngwén?) |
| David: Yeah. You can or cannot speak Chinese. |
| Jain: 你会不会说中文？(Nǐ huì bù huì shuō zhōngwén?) |
| David: So if you want to ask a question, instead of saying 会(Huì), you can say 会不会。(Huì bù huì.) |
| Jain: 会不会。(Huì bù huì.) |
| David: As in the question, can you speak Chinese? |
| Jain: 你会不会说中文？(Nǐ huì bù huì shuō zhōngwén?) |
Outro |
| David: Right. And that just about does it for us today. Before we leave you, we want to remind you, if you use iTunes, make sure to subscribe to our premium RSS feed. It’s going to get all of our Mp3s and your transcripts downloaded automatically to your computer and your Mp3 player. For now though, from Beijing, I am David. |
| Jain: 我是(Wǒ shì)Jain. |
| David: Thanks a lot for listening and we will see you on the site. |
| Jain: See you. |
| David: Bye bye. |
Easily master this lesson’s grammar points with in-depth explanations and examples. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Comments
Hide