Learn how to tell a cab driver where you want to go
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| David: Welcome to ChineseClass101. I’m David. |
| Echo: Hi. Da jia hao! 我是(Wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: We’re here with Lesson 50! |
| Echo: 第五十课！(Dì wǔshí kè!) |
| David: Fifty! Five zero! |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: First Beginner series, Lesson 50. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: This is the last one of this season. |
| Echo: 最后一课。(Zuìhòu yī kè.) |
| David: Right. So next week, we are off for a break and then we are coming back to you with Season 2. This dialogue, if you listen to it, if you go back and review the entire series, you will know how far we have come. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: We’ve come from… |
| Echo: We learned so many things. |
| David: Yes. We’ve gone from really, really simple sentences with adjectives to really complex sentences with a lot going on. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: And spoken at pretty significant speeds too. So in this lesson, we’re going to do some review and we’ll then introduce one final grammar point which is about how to sound a lot more native when you speak. |
| Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér.) |
| David: Right. Now, our dialogue here takes place again between a woman and a cab driver, but it’s a different cab driver than we had before. We’re going to take you to the dialogue. Before we do that, we did want to point out, you have not have the chance to check out our PDFs, make sure you come to ChineseClass101.com and get those. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: We’ve now got 50 lessons, each of which has a grammar point which is sequential and progressive and really gives you the foundations for understanding anything in the Chinese language. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: Okay? Now, without much further a-do, let’s head to the dialogue. |
| 甲: 您好，去哪儿？(JIǍ: Nínhǎo, qù nǎr?) |
| 乙: 去天安门广场。(YǏ: Qù Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng.) |
| 甲: 您想走哪条路？大路，还是小路？(JIǍ: Nín xiǎng zǒu nǎ tiáo lù? Dàlù, hái shì xiǎolù?) |
| 乙: 走最快的那条。(YǏ: Zǒu zuì kuài de nà tiáo.) |
| 甲: 没问题。(JIǍ: Méi wèntí.) |
| David: One more time, a bit slower. |
| 甲: 您好，去哪儿？(JIǍ: Nínhǎo, qù nǎr?) |
| 乙: 去天安门广场。(YǏ: Qù Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng.) |
| 甲: 您想走哪条路？大路，还是小路？(JIǍ: Nín xiǎng zǒu nǎ tiáo lù? Dàlù, hái shì xiǎolù?) |
| 乙: 走最快的那条。(YǏ: Zǒu zuì kuài de nà tiáo.) |
| 甲: 没问题。(JIǍ: Méi wèntí.) |
| 甲: 您好，去哪儿？(JIǍ: Nínhǎo, qù nǎr?) |
| David: Hello. Where are we going? |
| 乙: 去天安门广场。(YǏ: Qù Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng.) |
| David: Go to Tian'anmen Square |
| 甲: 您想走哪条路？大路，还是小路？(JIǍ: Nín xiǎng zǒu nǎ tiáo lù? Dàlù, hái shì xiǎolù?) |
| David: Which road do you want to take, the big road or the small road? |
| 乙: 走最快的那条。(YǏ: Zǒu zuì kuài de nà tiáo.) |
| David: Take the fastest road. |
| 甲: 没问题。(JIǍ: Méi wèntí.) |
| David: No problem. |
| David: So the dialogue was moving pretty quickly. It was moving really quickly. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: In fact, that’s because our dialogue actors are speaking faster and faster. |
| Echo: Yeah. Also, before the girl knows where to go. |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Also, because we’re giving me more and more really native speed recordings. In fact, we’ve got one recording of this where our voice actors, they just raced ahead. They went at lightning speeds. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Our lesson for today, anyway, is going to focus on reviewing a lot of really high frequency destinations so that wherever you want to go in China, you know how to say that. |
| Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér) |
| David: So let’s dive into the vocab section now. |
| Male: Now, the vocab section. |
| Echo: 廣場(guǎngchǎng) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Square. |
| Echo: 廣場(guǎngchǎng) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 廣場(guǎngchǎng) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 商場(shāngchǎng) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Shopping center. |
| Echo: 商場(shāngchǎng) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 商場(shāngchǎng) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 飯館(fànguǎnr) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Restaurant. |
| Echo: 飯館(fànguǎnr) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 飯館(fànguǎnr) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 飯店(fàndiàn) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Hotel. |
| Echo: 飯店(fàndiàn) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 飯店(fàndiàn) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 咖啡廳(kāfēitīng) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Coffee shop. |
| Echo: 咖啡廳(kāfēitīng) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 咖啡廳(kāfēitīng) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 酒吧(jiǔbā) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Bar. |
| Echo: 酒吧(jiǔbā) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 酒吧(jiǔbā) [natural native speed]. |
| Echo: 网吧(Wǎngbā) |
| David: Internet café. |
| Echo: 网吧(Wǎngbā) |
| Echo: 公園(gōngyuán) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Park. |
| Echo: 公園(gōngyuán) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 公園(gōngyuán) [natural native speed]. |
| David: Perfect. So those are the most common destinations, the most common places you’re going to want to go. |
| Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér.) |
| David: As we tell you in this series, the way to go is to tell the cab driver, “I want to go.” |
| Echo: 我想去。(Wǒ xiǎng qù.) |
| David: So you can say, “I want to go to the shopping concourse.” |
| Echo: 我想去商场。(Wǒ xiǎng qù shāngchǎng.) |
| David: Normally, you’re going to need to give them some kind of name, so you can say, “I want to go to the 西单(Xīdān) shopping concourse.” |
| Echo: 我想去西单商场。(Wǒ xiǎng qù xīdān shāngchǎng.) |
| David: Right. We’ve got a couple of words for hotel and restaurant tucked away. That’s review. You guys should already know that. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: You might want to ask to go to the Beijing hotel. |
| Echo: 我想去北京饭店。(Wǒ xiǎng qù běijīng fàndiàn.) |
| David: Which is right to Tiananmen Square. You may want to ask them to go to an internet café. |
| Echo: 我想去网吧。(Wǒ xiǎng qù wǎngbā.) |
| David: Right. Any cab driver should be able to help you find one of these, okay? Even late at night because they’re open 24 hours. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Of course, we’ve got other words like “park”. |
| Echo: 公园。(Gōngyuán.) |
| David: And bar. |
| Echo: 酒吧(Jiǔbā) |
| David: Which you may or may not use depending on how you like to spend your time. |
| Echo: There are so many very good 酒吧(Jiǔbā) and 公园(Gōngyuán) in Beijing too! |
| David: Yeah. Throughout China, there are lots of great bars and clubs in Shanghai as well. Great parks, too. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So there’s all of those destinations. Use them whenever you want to go there, obviously. Okay. We’ve also got these two other words tucked in, really lovely ones – big road… |
| Echo: 大路。(dàlù.) |
| David: And little road. |
| Echo: 小路。(xiǎolù.) |
| David: They mean exactly what they mean. |
| Echo: Right. Actually, you know what, after like living in Beijing for so many years, I’ve got used to Beijing’s 大路(dàlù) so much. |
| David: Yeah. They’re huge. There are eight lanes of traffic, and that’s even a little bit big road. |
| Echo: Right. Yeah. So right now wherever I go, I feel like, “Oh, you only have 小路 in your cities.” |
| David: Useful vocab anyway – big road, small road. |
| Echo: 大路，小路。(dàlù,xiǎolù.) |
| David: Of course, we heard the colloquial expression “no problem.” |
| Echo: 没问题。(méiwèntí.) |
| David: Which is one of the most useful things you can say. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: That’s our vocab section anway. |
| Male: It’s grammar time. |
| David: We’re not going to teach you grammar point per se, but we’re going to teach you a much more advanced technique for sounding like a native. One of the things we’ve only touched on very briefly has been tone sandhi. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Now, these are changes to the tones of words that the native Chinese speakers make automatically. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: The reason they do this is because it makes the language easier to actually say. |
| Echo: Right, right. |
| David: We haven’t gone in to this in too much depth before because if you’ve been practicing with us, you probably been picking it up. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: But we want to spend a bit of time and explain one of the trickier ones because you hear it everywhere and we’re going to explain it and we’re going to practice it. This bit of tone sandhi is what happens when you get two third tones launched together. |
| Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér.) |
| David: We’ve got a lot of really common words we’re going to use to practice this. |
| Echo: Right. Some are actually in the dialogue. |
| David: Right. The first one is, of course, hello. |
| Echo: 你好。(nǐhǎo.) |
| David: Practice that with Echo. |
| Echo: 你好。(nǐhǎo.) |
| David: Notice how we say these other words exactly the same way. |
| Echo: 想走。(xiǎng zǒu.) |
| David: To want, to go. |
| Echo: 想走。(xiǎng zǒu.) |
| David: Do you want take the big road? |
| Echo: 你想走大路吗？(Nǐ xiǎng zǒu dàlù ma?) |
| David: Do you want to take the big road.Here, we actually have something even trickier. We’ve got three third tones in a row, so even the first one changes. They all in the second tone, except for the very last tone. Let’s hear that again. |
| Echo: 你想走大路吗？(Nǐ xiǎng zǒu dàlù ma?) |
| David: Back to something easier. We have the word “can”. |
| Echo: 可以。(Kěyǐ.) |
| David: Technically, both of these are third tones. However, as a word, we pronounced them… |
| Echo: 可以。(Kěyǐ.) |
| David: So this should provide an explanation as well for maybe a couple of things. Next, we’ve got the word “very good”. |
| Echo: 很好。(Hěn hǎo.) |
| David: Listen to that again, “very good”. |
| Echo: 很好。(Hěn hǎo.) |
| David: As in the sentence: “I’m very good.” |
| Echo: 我很好。(Wǒ hěn hǎo.) |
| David: Okay. So we’re not hearing the fall through tones. So that’s our lesson for today. Pay attention to tone sandhi. When you run into these combinations, don’t worry if you’re not hearing the fall through tones. What you’re running into is the way people actually pronounce them. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: It can be tricky at times but we know you’re working to get the hang of it. So, 50 lessons. Then you should pat yourself on the back. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: We are off for a week next week. You can take a break and you can decide if you want to move up to the elementary level where things are going to get more and more tricky or if you want to build vocab with Season 2. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Season 2, we’re going to focus on dialogues that give you lots of the most common words in the most common situations. So make your decision and we will see you in the first week of January. |
| Echo: Right, in the new year! |
| David: Right. Before we leave, of course, we want to teach you one final thing: how do you say, “Merry Christmas”? |
| Echo: 圣诞快乐。(Shèngdàn kuàilè.) |
| David: One more time. |
| Echo: 圣诞快乐。(Shèngdàn kuàilè.) |
| David: And happy new year. |
| Echo: 新年快乐。(Xīnnián kuàilè.) |
| David: One more time. |
| Echo: 新年快乐。(Xīnnián kuàilè.) |
| David: From all of us to all of you, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! |
| Echo: 圣诞快乐，新年快乐。(Shèngdàn kuàilè, Xīnnián kuàilè.) |
| David: From Beijing, I’m David. |
| Echo: 我是(Wǒ shì)Echo。 |
| David: Take care. And we’ll see you in 2010. |
| Echo: Bye-bye! |
Comments
HideWhat is your favorite tourist attraction in China?
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 words are 新年快乐。
robert
Hello Dan,
Thank you for your positive comment, we're glad to hear that and to have you here. 😄
If you have any questions, please let us know.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
Ask me how depressed I got when Echo and David announced that it was year 2010 in the broadcast (here I was thinking ChineseClass 101 was a relatively new program). I hope they're both still at the company. Incredibly good coaches.
Hello SHAIBU HIWALISI,
Thank you for your comment. Keep it going! 😄
Let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
Thanks for your beginning lessons
Hello Kula,
Thank you for your positive feedback! ❤️️
Regarding payment, you can find more information here:
https://www.chineseclass101.com/helpcenter/billingsubscription/billing
If you have further questions about it, please contact our customer service at:
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Cheers,
Lena
Team ChineseClass101.com
hello everyone in ChineseClass101.com. You way of teaching is the best. It makes learning chinese fun. Keep it up.👍👍
I am about to finish this 7 day free trial lessons and want to upgrade my level to basic. Is wechat payment possible? 😄
Hello Gerald,
Thank you for your comment. It really depends on the context, as you know already, there are different words with the same meaning - 'to think'. Generally 想 can be used to express what you believe to be true. 认为 means 'to deem', it can be used to conclude one's belief based on considerations.
As always, and let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hi Ngai Lam!
Thanks for your answer.
One last question, I think I'm still not getting the difference with 想 when I want to say ''think'' or ''wish'' or ''believe''.
In this case you used 认为 which also means ''think'' or ''believe''. When is correct to use one or the other, if I want to say ''think''?
Thanks! 😁
Hello Gerald,
Thank you very much for your positive comment, we're glad to hear that you're learning a lot here! 😄👍
我一直在学中文3年 => 我学中文三年了。
我想它非常便宜 => 我认为非常便宜。
Keep it up, and let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
Nevermind, I found it 😅😆
大家好！谢谢你的课！
我一直在学中文3年 with some pauses in the middle, I even take a ''basic course'' 在孔子学院 and I must say that not even there I learned as much as here 😮, you have a very well organized system and honestly 我想它非常便宜 for everything you give. So it's totally worth it 😁 而且我会继续向你学习更多！👍
One question, you said in the audio that Beginners series 2 will be available from January, where can I find the lessons you have given so far?
感谢ChineseClass101! 😉
Hi Elijah
You are very welcome. If you have any questions about Chinese learning, just ask us.
Thank you for learning with us.
Amy
Team ChineseClass101.com
thank you amy for your comment i am looking forward on hearing you guys more.
Hi Elijah
I'm glad to hear that. You are moving pretty fast. Like any language learning, it takes time to get it.
Thanks for learning with us.
Amy
Team ChineseClass101.com
hello everyone in ChineseClass101.com and students i have finished all my lessons on premium and basic and i am soon going to go on premium plus i can't wait to hear from you guys again
Wo Ai Ni
Zaijian
Elijah Roesner aka Blur
Hi, Nash,
Thank you for your comment.
If you have any question, please give us a message.
We are always ready to help you.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hi Eco, David,Frank and team, I have studied mandarins for the past two years，online video course, which was really great , your course gave me additional ammunition , I was able to complete season 1 in two days. Contents in your audio course is well organised an very easy and clearly explained, thank you and looking forward to using your premium service.
Hi Dan,
There isn't a way to enlarge the characters only. Maybe you can try, by zooiming in. The zoom is a feature usually available in the browser.
I hope this helps.
Thank you,
Ofelia
Team ChineseClass101.com