Learn how to give other people directions
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| David: Welcome to ChineseClass101. I’m David. |
| Echo: Hi! Da jia hao! 我是(Wǒ shì)Echo. |
| David: Echo, we’re here with beginning Lesson 48. |
| Echo: 没错。第四十八课(Méi cuò. Dì sìshíbā kè) in our series one. |
| David: Yes. This is actually pretty close to last week because we are in the same cab with the same driver and the same female passenger. |
| Echo: Although she actually made some progress. |
| David: She’s made some progress in Chinese. However, as far as the driver goes, he hasn’t made much progress. Getting those directions hasn’t done much for him. So she’s got to tell him exactly where he needs to go. |
| Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér.) |
| David: Right. So this is our lesson. We’re going to teach you how to say turn left, turn right, and always importantly, stop the car. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: We’ve got a dialogue for you. We’re going to take you there in a sec. Before we do, Echo, there’s something you wanted to talk about. |
| Echo: Please go to our premium learning center. |
| David: Right. We’ve got a lot of great stuff in there, such as our voice recording tool. This is for premium subscribers. It’s going to help you get your tones down perfectly. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Okay. With that though, let’s go on to the dialogue. |
| 甲: 现在怎么走？(JIǍ: Xiànzài zěnme zǒu?) |
| 乙: 直走就行了。(YǏ: Zhí zǒu jiù xíng le.) |
| 甲: 还有多远？(JIǍ: Hái yǒu duō yuǎn?) |
| 乙: 过两个红绿灯。(YǏ: Guò liǎng ge hónglǜdēng.) |
| 甲: 好。(JIǍ: Hǎo.) |
| 乙: 到了。谢谢。(YǏ: Dào le. Xièxie.) |
| David: One more time, a bit slower. |
| 甲: 现在怎么走？(JIǍ: Xiànzài zěnme zǒu?) |
| 乙: 直走就行了。(YǏ: Zhí zǒu jiù xíng le.) |
| 甲: 还有多远？(JIǍ: Hái yǒu duō yuǎn?) |
| 乙: 过两个红绿灯。(YǏ: Guò liǎng ge hónglǜdēng.) |
| 甲: 好。(JIǍ: Hǎo.) |
| 乙: 到了。谢谢。(YǏ: Dào le. Xièxie.) |
| 甲: 现在怎么走？(JIǍ: Xiànzài zěnme zǒu?) |
| David: How do we go now? |
| 乙: 直走就行了。(YǏ: Zhí zǒu jiù xíng le.) |
| David: Go straight then that’s okay. |
| 甲: 还有多远？(JIǍ: Hái yǒu duō yuǎn?) |
| David: How much distance is left? |
| 乙: 过两个红绿灯。(YǏ: Guò liǎng ge hónglǜdēng.) |
| David: Pass two street lights. |
| 甲: 好。(JIǍ: Hǎo.) |
| David: Okay. |
| 乙: 到了。谢谢。(YǏ: Dào le. Xièxie.) |
| David: Hey, we’ve arrived. We’ve arrived. Thanks! |
| David: I’ve had this conversation before. |
| Echo: Yeah. You didn’t scream? |
| David: I did scream actually. I screamed the last line. “Stop the car! Stop the car! We’ve arrived.” The driver has… |
| Echo: So almost gave the cab driver a heart attack. |
| David: No. The cab driver was like, “Huh, we’re already here? Why didn’t you tell me?” To which the answer is, “We did tell you.” We’re going to take you to the vocab now and all of our vocab for this lesson is stuff you’re going to find useful when you’re telling directions. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: Echo, take us away. |
| Male: Now, the vocab section. |
| Echo: 怎麼走(zěnme zǒu) [natural native speed]. |
| David: How to go. |
| Echo: 怎麼走(zěnme zǒu) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 怎麼走(zěnme zǒu) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 近(jìn) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Near. |
| Echo: 近(jìn) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 近(jìn) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 遠(yuǎn) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Far. |
| Echo: 遠(yuǎn) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 遠(yuǎn) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 直走(zhízǒu) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Go straight. |
| Echo: 直走(zhízǒu) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 直走 (zhízǒu)[natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 左轉(zuǒzhuǎn) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Turn left. |
| Echo: 左轉(zuǒzhuǎn) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 左轉(zuǒzhuǎn) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 右轉(yòuzhuǎn) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Turn right. |
| Echo: 右轉(yòuzhuǎn) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 右轉(yòuzhuǎn) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 紅綠燈(hónglǜdēng) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Stop light. |
| Echo: 紅綠燈(hónglǜdēng) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 紅綠燈(hónglǜdēng) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 路口(lùkǒu) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Intersection. |
| Echo: 路口(lùkǒu) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 路口(lùkǒu) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 停車(tíngchē) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Stop the car. |
| Echo: 停車(tíngchē) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 停車(tíngchē) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Okay. A lot of really useful vocab for telling directions. The first phrase that springs to mind is, of course, the first word we gave you. |
| Echo: 怎么走。(zěnme zǒu.) |
| David: This is literally two words. It’s the word for “how”… |
| Echo: 怎么。(Zěnme) |
| David: …and “to go”. |
| Echo: 走。(Zǒu.) |
| David: In the dialogue, we hear it in a stand-alone sentence. |
| Echo: 现在怎么走。(Xiànzài zěnme zǒu.) |
| David: Right now, how do you want me to go? |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Something interesting about this phrase is the way it’s used is different than how you might use it in English. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: In English, we’d say, “How do I go to the hospital?” In Chinese, that’s… |
| Echo: 医院怎么走？(Yīyuàn zěnme zǒu?) |
| David: Let’s hear that again. |
| Echo: 医院怎么走？(Yīyuàn zěnme zǒu?) |
| David: Note the way we put the destination word right upfront there. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: So you could say, “How do I get to the office?” |
| Echo: 办公室怎么走？(Bàngōngshì zěnme zǒu?) |
| David: How do I get to the police station? |
| Echo: 派出所怎么走？(Pàichūsuǒ zěnme zǒu?) |
| David: Right. Our next words for you are adjectives. The adjectives near… |
| Echo: 近。(jìn.) |
| David: And far. |
| Echo: 远。(yuǎn.) |
| David: You’re going to hear this a lot or you’re going to need to use them a lot to tell people, “It’s not very far.” |
| Echo: 不太远。(Bù tài yuǎn.) |
| David: Or it’s very near. |
| Echo: 很近。(Hěn jìn.) |
| David: Right. Because this is a distance, when people asked you, they’re going to say, “How near is it?” |
| Echo: 有多近？(Yǒu duō jìn?) |
| David: Yeah. To have “how much near”. The rest of the words are words you can use giving directions. We’ve got, “Go straight.” |
| Echo: 直走。(Zhí zǒu.) |
| David: We’ve got, “Turn left.” |
| Echo: 左转。(zuǒzhuǎn.) |
| David: Turn right. |
| Echo: 右转。(yòuzhuǎn.) |
| David: At the bottom, we’ve got, “Stop the car”. |
| Echo: 停车。(Tíngchē) |
| David: Of these, I think the hardest ones are “turn left” and “turn right”. |
| Echo: 为什么？(Wèishéme?) |
| David: Because it’s easy for people to get them mixed up. |
| Echo: So remember left is 左(Zuǒ), right is 右.(Yòu.) |
| David: That’s easy to say, but it is occasionally hard to remember. |
| Echo: Well, you can write it down on your hands. |
| David: Yeah. Maybe you should write it down on your hands. I used to get this mixed up all time. Anyway, try to bear those in mind. Once again, we’ve got, “Go straight.” |
| Echo: 直走。(Zhí zǒu.) |
| David: Turn left. |
| Echo: 左转。(zuǒzhuǎn.) |
| David: Turn right. |
| Echo: 右转。(yòuzhuǎn.) |
| David: And “stop the car”. |
| Echo: 停车。(tíngchē.) |
| David: Last but not least, we’ve got two words you’re going to use all the time. There is “stop light”. |
| Echo: 红绿灯。(hónglǜdēng.) |
| David: Which is literally a red… |
| Echo: 红。(Hóng.) |
| David: …and green… |
| Echo: 绿。(Lǜ.) |
| David: Light. |
| Echo: 灯。(Dēng) |
| David: Stop light. |
| Echo: 红绿灯。(hónglǜdēng.) |
| David: Then finally, we’ve got intersection. |
| Echo: 路口。(lùkǒu.) |
| David: Which is road and then mouth, and that means where the roads meet. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So if you’re going to ask someone for directions, you can ask them, “At what intersection is that?” |
| Echo: 在哪个路口？(Zài nǎge lùkǒu?) |
| David: Right. So before we head to grammar, we’re going to play a bit of a quick game. Echo, I need to give you directions and I want you to translate them into Chinese. |
| Echo: Okay. |
| David: Okay? You guys, see if you can keep up with us. Okay? |
| Echo: 好。(Hǎo.) |
| David: First, go straight ahead. |
| Echo: 直走。(zhízǒu.) |
| David: Then turn left. |
| Echo: 再左转。(Zài zuǒ zhuǎn.) |
| David: Then turn right. |
| Echo: 再右转。(Zài yòu zhuǎn.) |
| David: Then turn left again. |
| Echo: 再左转。(Zài zuǒ zhuǎn.) |
| David: “Then you’re there.” Note the use of the word… |
| Echo: 再。(Zài.) |
| David: …in that sentence. .It means, “And then.” Same as in goodbye. Speaking of goodbye, we’re done the vocab section and we’re going to head to the grammar section. |
| Echo: So goodbye vocab section. |
| David: Goodbye vocab. |
| Male: It’s grammar time. |
| David: Okay. Our grammar section is pretty simple. |
| Echo: It’s about 在 but it’s another zai. |
| David: Yeah. It’s the zai that we use as a preposition and as a verb. |
| Echo: 没错。 |
| David: It means “at” or “to be at”. We’ve run into this before in simple sentences. |
| Echo: Yeah, as a verb. |
| David: We’ve seen it in sentences like, “The food is on the table.” |
| Echo: 饭在桌子上。(Fàn zài zhuōzi shàng.) |
| David: Or, “The pen is in my bag.” |
| Echo: 笔在书包里。(Bǐ zài shūbāo lǐ.) |
| David: Right. Now, in these sentences… |
| Echo: 在。(Zài.) |
| David: It’s acting as the main verb. In sentences that tell directions, we’re going to be using it a bit differently. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: We’re going to be using it primarily as what’s known as a preposition or co-verb in Chinese. Now, don’t let these grammar words scare you. The important thing to pay attention to is just it’s not actually the main verb in the sentence. Because it’s a preposition, we’ve got to put it before the main verb in our sentence. |
| Echo: Right. To point it out, the direction or… |
| David: Right. Now the reason we’re doing this is because if you’re in the cab, you’re not always going to be able to say, “To left, to right” because if you say that, it means right now, right? You want to be able to say, “At the stop light, turn left” or “At the intersection, turn right.” That’s where… |
| Echo: 在(Zài) |
| David: …is going to come in really useful. Let’s take a look at some sample sentences. |
| Echo: 好。(Hǎo.) |
| David: Turn left here. |
| Echo: 在这儿左转。(Zài zhè'er zuǒ zhuǎn.) |
| David: Note the way that… |
| Echo: 在。(Zài.) |
| David: ..takes place before the main verb. The main verb in that sentence is “turn left”. |
| Echo: 左转。(Zuǒ zhuǎn.)Actually, it’s 转.(Zhuǎn.) |
| David: Yes, it’s third tone. So we’ve got… |
| Echo: 在(Zài) |
| David: …and then the place. |
| Echo: 这儿(Zhè'er) |
| David: And then the verb. |
| Echo: 左转。(Zuǒ zhuǎn.) |
| David: At here, turn left. |
| Echo: 在这儿左转。(Zài zhè'er zuǒ zhuǎn.) |
| David: Let’s take a look at another sentence. “Turn right there”. |
| Echo: 在那儿右转。(Zài nà'er yòu zhuǎn.) |
| David: Go straight ahead at the lights. |
| Echo: 在红绿灯直走。(Zài hónglǜdēng zhí zǒu.) |
| David: Then finally, we’ve got “stop the car at the intersection.” |
| Echo: 在路口停车。(Zài lùkǒu tíngchē.) |
| Echo: 在。(Zài.) |
| David: Here is a preposition or a co-verb, depending on which textbook you are using. One of the really, really common mistakes people make is sticking it after the verb…. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: …because it’s the way it sounds in English. |
| Echo: Yeah, yeah. |
| David: One of the hardest things to do getting used to Chinese is getting used to putting that stuff in front of the verb. |
| Echo: Yeah, put it before. Right. |
| David: Okay. When you’re giving directions, you’re going to need to do that, okay? That’s our lesson for today. Before we go, we want to remind you, all of this stuff we’re talking about – the grammar notes, the vocab, they’re in the PDFs that we’ve got on the site. Premium PDFs, they’re part of our subscription. If you’re learning Chinese, it’s a really good deal. |
| Echo: Yup. |
| David: So go check them out. If you have any questions, Echo… |
| Echo: Make sure always leave a comment on the site or write to us. |
| David: Right. We are here to answer any questions you have, so we’d love to hear it from you. From Beijing, I’m David. |
| Echo: 我是(Wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next week. |
| Echo: 我们下周见吧。(Wǒmen xià zhōu jiàn ba) |
| David: Bye-bye. |
| Echo: Bye. |
| 甲: 现在怎么走？(JIǍ: Xiànzài zěnme zǒu?) |
| 乙: 直走就行了。(YǏ: Zhí zǒu jiù xíng le.) |
| 甲: 还有多远？(JIǍ: Hái yǒu duō yuǎn?) |
| 乙: 过两个红绿灯。(YǏ: Guò liǎng ge hónglǜdēng.) |
| 甲: 好。(JIǍ: Hǎo.) |
| 乙: 到了。谢谢。(YǏ: Dào le. Xièxie.) |
Comments
HideWhat is your most memorable Chinese taxi experience?
你好 robert groulx！
不用谢。(Bú yòng xiè.) = No need for thanks. You're welcome. 😇
谢谢 (Xièxie) for studying with us, it's great to have you here!
Let us know if you have any questions.
Kind regards,
雷文特 (Levente)
Team ChineseClass101.com
thanks for the lesson
my favorite are 在这儿左转
robert
Hello Dung,
Thank you for your comment. You may check out our reading and writing resources here:
https://www.chineseclass101.com/chinese-resources/
Also, in the lessons, you can download the Hanzi Close Up PDF worksheets, they can be found under the main titles of the lessons, "Download PDFs".
Hope it helps, let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hello there,
Thank you so much for the useful information. But can you recommend me some of the book to practice my Hanzi since I have studied till this point and my Hanzi is still weak.
Thanks a lot.
Hello Becci,
Thank you for your comment. Both 转 and 拐 can mean 'to turn', generally they express the same idea, and 拐 is more colloquial. Note that 转 can refer to changing direction when you're staying at the same spot, while 拐 refers to changing direction when you're moving.
As always, let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hello Gerald,
Thank you for your comment. To say 'he told me', you should say '他告诉我'. '他说了我' is not grammatically correct. To say 'doubt', you can say '疑问 yíwèn'.
You can say: 在小商店左转，再左转，然后右转，在红绿灯处直走，最后在饭店右转，就是我的家。
今天下午两点我会去吧 => 今天下午两点我会去你家。
As always, let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
转和拐都有意思‘to turn.' 转和拐有什么区别？
'Zhuǎn' and 'guǎi' are both translated as 'turn turn.' What is the difference between these two words?
谢谢
大家好
这课很有用 😄 现在我能说我的家在哪儿。例:
昨天我朋友问我我的家在哪儿，我说了''我家在小商店左转，在左转，在红路灯右转而且在饭店右转，那是我的家 '' 然后他告诉我 ''好的，今天下午两点我会去吧''
Hi everyone!
This class was very useful 😄 Now i can said where's my home. Example:
Yesterday my friend asked me where's my home, I told him ''My house is turning to the left at the small store, then turn left again, then turn right, then at the traffic light go straight and then turn right at the restaurant, that's my house'', then he told me ''Ok, I'll go there today at 14:00 this afternoon''.
现在我有两个问题 :
- I realized I get a little confuse when i want to say ''told'', which is more accurate, for example, ''He told me''...他说了我 or 他告诉我 or both can be used interchangeably??
- How you say ''doubt'' in chinese, I'm looking for another way to say ''Ihave one doubt'' than 我有一个问题
谢谢！
Hi Elijah,
Glad to hear that you found our lesson interesting! Hope you like the rest of our series.:)
Sincerely,
Cristiane
Team ChineseClass101.com
this lesson is very interesting and it sound very useful in china to know were you are going
Hi, Al Wingate ,
Yes, we are always waiting for your questions.
Keep or learning!
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
No, Alex. You are the man! Trying to get my interest back....my most memorable...nope, better not go into that.
加油，卫力！:smile:
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Cho，
我太谢你了！你真的帮了我。
I often mix up the order of two character words, especially 想要。 I suppose I think of the 想 as making the more abrupt 要 more polite and so put it afterwards to correct it when I should put it first. I use the one character words, because they're easier to remember and my vocabulary is still really limited, but 跟你的帮，我会尝试做的什么你教我。
谢谢！
卫力
Hi, 卫力，
95 points!
很好，你已经完全掌握了“在”的用法。
第一句，应该是：
我想要去城市。or 我想要去市区。or 我想要去城里。or 我想要去市里。
想要：want
要想：the short term of 要是想, if want
城市/市区 is better than 市.
城市/市区 is comparative to "countryside".
市 has meaning of "market".
If you use 城 or 市, add 里 to make the rhyme.
What about try to use 2 characters as possible as you can?
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
大家好，
我有一个问题。 In the pdf, the subject of using zai in directions is mentioned, as in the podcast, but which is the character. On page 6 of the pdf , it has the character 再, but earlier on page 5 in the sample sentences, it has 在。 I am guessing that the character on page 6 is a mistake, and it should be 在。
Let me try a sample sentence to see if 我明白:
I want to go to the city. We need to go straight， turn right at the hotel. turn left at the first big building, then turn right again.
我要想去市。 我们需要直走，在宾馆右转，在第一大楼左转, 再右转。(Wǒ yào xiǎng qù shì. Wǒmen xūyào zhí zǒu, zài bīnguǎn yòu zhuǎn, zài dì yī dàlóu zuǒ zhuǎn, zài yòu zhuǎn..)
再见，
卫力。
Hi Talon,
That's true. There're always such problems, even the local people sometimes get cheated. So bad.
Chloe
Team ChineseClass101.com
My experience is that if you're in the smaller cities of China the taxi drivers are less likely to cheat you than in say, Beijing. Anyway a few weeks ago I came up from Shandong to visit Beijing for spring festival. I was with my girl friend (who's Chinese btw) and it was the first time for either of us to go to Beijing. So as you can imagine, we were both not very familiar with how to get around. So we ended up waiting in line to take a taxi. My girlfriend phoned a nearby hotel and asked them, "about how long should it take to get to the hotel by taxi?" To which they replied about 10 minutes. Anyway we got in the taxi and the driver talked with the hotel employee and was like " Yeah, I know where that is" then he started to drive. We get out of the airport and onto the freeway. 15 minutes goes by and I asked the driver how much longer, the driver then looked around calmly and said that if we wanted to go to the hotel we originally told him it was going to be 100rmb and that it was quite far away. We explained again where we needed to go and the driver slows down to a crawl on the freeway. All the while cars are honking and zipping past us.Then he pretends to be lost and says that he doesn't know where to go. At this point, I started to get angry with the driver and was yelling "are you crazy, you're going to kill us!". The taxi meter was already at 50, so I was like you know what, just take us to the nearest hotel, so we eventually found our way to a green tree inn right next to terminal 2 of the Beijing airport. So anyway, for anyone who's a foreigner in Beijing, I would be wary of taking a taxi from the airport unless you know exactly where you're going. I even had my chinese girlfriend with me and got cheated. They see your foreign face and think that they can screw with you. Anyway, had I known better, I would have just taken the airport railway into the city. (Which is what I recommend doing) It's like 24 rmb and leads right into all the other subway lines. It's right in front of the main terminal and runs until 11pm (I think). Or you can catch a bus from the basement of terminal 2 to pretty much anywhere you need to go for much less money and hassle than taking a taxi.
Mine was screaming through the nighttime streets of Xi'an at about 80 MPH while my parents sat terrified in the backseat. I don't think I've ever driven as fast in an urban area before. Eventually we asked the driver to slow down.
wow.I guess that's why he asked for your permission:mrgreen: