Learn about purchasing electricity and two functions of a particle that may be slightly confusing
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: This is about when you are sitting at work, you are about to save that report and everything shuts off. Not that uncommon here. So we’ve got a dialogue that takes place at home probably later in the evening. |
| Sylvia: Right. |
| David: Work is just done. He is just about to save it. Let’s see what happens. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A: 咦？灯怎么不亮了？(Yí? Dēng zěnme bú liàng le?) |
| B: 好像停电了。(Hǎoxiàng tíngdiàn le.) |
| A: 去看看怎么回事。(Qù kànkàn zěnme huíshì.) |
| B: 奇怪，邻居有电。(Qíguài ，línjū yǒu diàn.) |
| David: One more time a bit slower. |
| A: 咦？灯怎么不亮了？(Yí? Dēng zěnme bú liàng le?) |
| B: 好像停电了。(Hǎoxiàng tíngdiàn le.) |
| A: 去看看怎么回事。(Qù kànkàn zěnme huíshì.) |
| B: 奇怪，邻居有电。(Qíguài ，línjū yǒu diàn.) |
| David: And now with the English translation. |
| Sylvia: 咦？灯怎么不亮了？(Yí? Dēng zěnme bú liàng le?) |
| David: Huh? Why did the light turn off? |
| Sylvia: 好像停电了。(Hǎoxiàng tíngdiàn le.) |
| David: It seems as if the power went out. |
| Sylvia: 去看看怎么回事。(Qù kànkàn zěnme huíshì.) |
| David: Go see what the problem is. |
| Sylvia: 奇怪，邻居有电。(Qíguài ，línjū yǒu diàn.) |
| David: That's strange, the neighbors have power. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: The problem is the fuse. It’s not that difficult. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Sylvia: 怎么(zěnme) [natural native speed] |
| David: how |
| Sylvia: 怎么(zěnme) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Sylvia: 怎么(zěnme) [natural native speed] |
| Sylvia: 亮(liàng) [natural native speed] |
| David: bright |
| Sylvia: 亮(liàng) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Sylvia: 亮(liàng) [natural native speed] |
| Sylvia: 好像(hǎoxiàng) [natural native speed] |
| David: to seem |
| Sylvia: 好像(hǎoxiàng) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Sylvia: 好像(hǎoxiàng) [natural native speed] |
| Sylvia: 停电(tíngdiàn) [natural native speed] |
| David: to have a blackout |
| Sylvia: 停电(tíngdiàn) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Sylvia: 停电(tíngdiàn) [natural native speed] |
| Sylvia: 有电(yǒu diàn) [natural native speed] |
| David: to have (electricity) power |
| Sylvia: 有电(yǒu diàn) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Sylvia: 有电(yǒu diàn) [natural native speed] |
| Sylvia: 了(le) [natural native speed] |
| David: (change of state particle) |
| Sylvia: 了(le) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Sylvia: 了(le) [natural native speed] |
| Sylvia: 奇怪(qí guài) [natural native speed] |
| David: strange |
| Sylvia: 奇怪(qí guài) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Sylvia: 奇怪(qí guài) [natural native speed] |
| Sylvia: 邻居(línjū) [natural native speed] |
| David: neighbor |
| Sylvia: 邻居(línjū) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Sylvia: 邻居(línjū) [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: Let’s take a closer look at some of these words and phrases. The first word is obviously blackout 停电(tíngdiàn), or to have the power outage 停电(tíngdiàn), and there is literally two words we already know. The first means to stop 停(Tíng), as in stop the car 停车(Tíngchē). In this case though, it’s not the car, it’s 电(Diàn), which means electricity or power 电(Diàn). So a power outage 停电(tíngdiàn) and this is either a verb or a noun. Now Sylvia, what’s the opposite of a power outage? |
| Sylvia: 有电.(yǒu diàn.) |
| David: Do have power. |
| Sylvia: Literally yes. |
| David: Yeah 有电.(yǒu diàn.) So you can ask if the power is on by saying 有电吗？(Yǒu diàn ma?) or 有没有电？(Yǒu méiyǒu diàn?) Right, So in Chinese, the opposite of the stop is to have |
| Sylvia: 有没有电？(Yǒu méiyǒu diàn?) |
| David: Another useful word in our dialog is the word meaning bright 亮(Liàng), bright 亮.(Liàng.) |
| Sylvia: So this word 亮(Liàng) literally means bright. |
| David: Right and things like the day can become bright. 天亮了(Tiānliàngle). Right usually it’s 6 to 7 o’ clock. It’s the opposite of 天黑了(Tiān hēile), but there are other words with this as well. My favorite is the word moon 月亮(Yuèliàng), moon 月亮.(Yuèliàng.) The moon is very bright. 月亮很亮(Yuèliàng hěn liàng). Right. The last word we want to highlight means strange 奇怪(Qíguài), strange 奇怪(Qíguài). Just like in English, this is an adjective. So you can say very strange 很奇怪(Hěn qíguài). Extremely strange 非常奇怪(Fēicháng qíguài), or excessively strange 太奇怪了(Tài qíguàile). As with English though, we can also use this standing alone at the head of a sentence. For instance, 奇怪(Qíguài)，邻居有电(Línjū yǒu diàn) that’s strange, the neighbors have power. |
| Sylvia: 奇怪，他还没来.(Qíguài, tā hái méi lái.) |
| David: Strange, he still hasn’t come. So this word 奇怪(Qíguài) you can use it either as an adjective or to lead a sentence. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: Our grammar point today is actually it’s not a grammar point. It’s review. |
| Sylvia: Right. |
| David: We’ve given you guys a lot of new stuff over the past couple of lessons. So we want to take a few moments here, relax and review something that’s really important. |
| Sylvia: So today we are going to talk about 了(Le). |
| David: Right. The change of state past aspect particle. 了(Le). And the fact is particle does two things is what confuses a lot of people. In previous lessons, we’ve given you the rules. So we want to see how much you still remember. Sylvia, you’ve got six sentences for us. |
| Sylvia: Right. Get ready. |
| David: Three of these are past aspect. |
| Sylvia: Yes. |
| David: And three of them are change of state. So Sylvia is going to give them to us. |
| Sylvia: And your job is to figure out which is which? |
| David: Right. Number 1… |
| Sylvia: 天已经黑了.(Tiān yǐjīng hēile.) |
| David: If you guess past tense, you are wrong. That’s change of state. We’ve got 了(Le) at the end of the sentence following an adjective 黑了(Hēile). Example 2... |
| Sylvia: 他下午睡了觉.(Tā xiàwǔ shuìle jué.) |
| David: If you guess past tense, you are right. He slept in the afternoon, 睡了觉(Shuìle jué). 了(Le) here follows the verb directly instead of coming at the end of the sentence. That’s usually a sign of the past tense. We’ve got four more. Let’s go through them a bit quicker… |
| Sylvia: 北京怎么又下雨了？ (Běijīng zěnme yòu xià yǔle?) |
| David: and this is change of state. |
| Sylvia: Next one 他昨天打电话了.(Tā zuótiān dǎ diànhuàle.) |
| David: Yesterday he called and that one is a bit tricky because we’ve got 了(Le) at the end of the sentence. We’ve got two more. |
| Sylvia: 我们昨天看书了.(Wǒmen zuótiān kànshūle.) |
| David: Yesterday we read a book and again it’s the word yesterday that’s giving that a way. If we don’t have that, it might be – it might be change of state. We just read the book. Last example… |
| Sylvia: 刚才天亮了.(Gāngcái tiānliàngle.) |
| David: It’s just become day 刚才天亮了(Gāngcái tiānliàngle), and if you guess change of state, you are right. The sky has brightened just now. |
| Sylvia: 刚才天亮了(Gāngcái tiānliàngle). So how did you do? |
| David: Right. If you didn’t get perfect, don’t worry. It takes years for people to really get the nuances down. |
Outro |
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