Learn a Chinese phrase made up of two parts that will help you say that you cannot hear something
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Anthony: Welcome to chineseclass101, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn Chinese. |
| Echo: 嗨，大家好， 我是Echo。(Hāi, dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì Echo) |
| Anthony: And this is our 14th lesson in our second season of our beginner series. Turn Down the Volume. |
| Echo: Right. In today’s dialogue, we are listening on a noisy living room. |
| Anthony: That’s right. There is two people sitting in a living room watching television but one of them is unhappy. |
| Echo: Right because he wants the volume to be lowered. |
| Anthony: Now stay tuned in this lesson as we introduce some new audio related vocabulary words. |
| Echo: And an interesting grammar point. |
| Anthony: Yes an awesome grammar point but before we go on to the dialogue, to all of our listeners out there on iTunes, come to chineseclass101.com and sign up for a free lifetime subscription. All you have to do is enter in your email address and you will automatically start receiving email updates. |
| Echo: Right it’s very simple. |
| Anthony: Okay with that said, let’s go on to our dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| 小声点儿。(Xiǎoshēng diǎnr.) |
| 什么？ (Shénme?) |
| 我说。。。 (Wǒshuō...) |
| 什么？我听不见！(Shénme? Wǒtīng bú jiàn！) |
| 电视！小声点儿。(Diànshì! Xiǎoshēng diǎnr.) |
| Anthony: One more time, a little bit slower. |
| 小声点儿。(Xiǎoshēng diǎnr.) |
| 什么？ (Shénme?) |
| 我说。。。 (Wǒshuō...) |
| 什么？我听不见！(Shénme? Wǒtīng bú jiàn！) |
| 电视！小声点儿。 (Diànshì! Xiǎoshēng diǎnr.) |
| Anthony: One more time with English. |
| 小声点儿。(Xiǎoshēng diǎnr.) |
| Turn down the volume a little. |
| 什么？ (Shénme?) |
| What? |
| 我说。。。 (Wǒshuō...) |
| I said... |
| 什么？我听不见！(Shénme? Wǒtīng bú jiàn！) |
| What? I can't hear you. |
| 电视！小声点儿。 (Diànshì! Xiǎoshēng diǎnr.) |
| The television, turn down the volume. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Anthony: Echo, I think this is a really fun dialogue. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| Anthony: Now even though this takes place in a living room, there are a lot of other places in China that this will be really useful. |
| Echo: Exactly because China in general is a noisy place. |
| Anthony: Yeah there is lots of construction going on, cars honking their horns. |
| Echo: Yeah and also the people can be noisy too especially while on a subway or a train, often times, they will talk on their cell phones. |
| Anthony: Yes very loudly. So their private conversation soon turns into a public conversation. |
| Echo: Yeah but if this happens, you can politely ask them to lower the volume. |
| Anthony: That’s right. So we’ve come up with the vocabulary list to help you persuade the noisy guy sitting next to you on the subway to adjust the volume. |
| Echo: Yeah. That’s right. Let’s listen in. |
| Anthony: Okay. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Anthony: And now the vocab section. |
| Echo: 大声 (dàshēng) |
| Anthony: Loud. |
| Echo: 大声, 大声. 小声 (dàshēng, dàshēng. xiǎoshēng) |
| Anthony: Quiet. |
| Echo: 小声, 小声. 声音 (xiǎoshēng, xiǎoshēng. shēngyīn) |
| Anthony: Volume. |
| Echo: 声音, 声音. 听不见 (shēngyīn, shēngyīn. tīngbújiàn) |
| Anthony: Not to be able to hear. |
| Echo: 听不见, 听不见. 看不见 (tīngbújiàn, tīngbújiàn. kànbújiàn) |
| Anthony: Not to be able to see. |
| Echo: 看不见, 看不见. 吵 (kànbújiàn, kànbújiàn. chǎo) |
| Anthony: Noisy. |
| Echo: 吵, 吵. 电视 (chǎo, chǎo. diànshì) |
| Anthony: Television. |
| Echo: 电视, 电视. (diànshì, diànshì.) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Anthony: Okay we got a great vocabulary section coming up. Let’s get right into it. Echo, what’s our first word? |
| Echo: 大声 (dàshēng) |
| Anthony: Loud. |
| Echo: Yeah 大声 (dàshēng) |
| Anthony: And this literally translates as big sound. |
| Echo: Right. 请你大声点儿。 (Qǐng nǐdàshēng diǎnr.) |
| Anthony: Can you please be a little louder? |
| Echo: 请你大声点儿。(Qǐng nǐdàshēng diǎnr.) |
| Anthony: Okay and the opposite of loud is |
| Echo: 小声 (xiǎoshēng) |
| Anthony: Quiet. |
| Echo: 小声 (xiǎoshēng) |
| Anthony: Or little sound. |
| Echo: 小声一点，(Xiǎoshēng yīdiǎn,) 他在睡觉。(tāzài shuìjiào.) |
| Anthony: Can you be a little quieter, he is sleeping. |
| Echo: 小声一点，(Xiǎoshēng yīdiǎn,) 他在睡觉。(tāzài shuìjiào.) |
| Anthony: Echo, you know in my apartment building in the stairwell next to one of the apartments is a sign that says, we have a baby, please be quiet. |
| Echo: Oh that’s sweet. |
| Anthony: So I have to tiptoe up to my apartment. |
| Echo: 小声一点 (Xiǎoshēng yīdiǎn) Anthony。 |
| Anthony: That’s right. We have a “baobao” in the room. |
| Echo: 宝宝(Bǎobǎo) “Bapbao” is like kind of dumplings. |
| Anthony: Oh that’s right. Okay Echo, what’s our next word? |
| Echo: 声音 (shēngyīn) |
| Anthony: Volume. |
| Echo: 声音 (shēngyīn) |
| Anthony: Both first tones. |
| Echo: 声音太大了。(Shēngyīn tàidà le.) |
| Anthony: The volume is too high. |
| Echo: 声音太大了。 (Shēngyīn tàidà le.) |
| Anthony: So our next phrase is |
| Echo: 听不见。(Tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: To listen but to not hear. |
| Echo: 听不见。对不起，我听不见。(Tīng bùjiàn. Duìbùqǐ, wǒ tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: I am sorry, I wasn’t able to hear. |
| Echo: 对不起, (Duìbùqǐ,) 我听不见。(Wǒ tīng bùjiàn.) You will use this sentence very often because in China, a lot of cell phones, they don’t have very good signals. So you may talk to someone but you can’t hear them suddenly and then you can say, 对不起，我听不见。(Duìbùqǐ, Wǒ tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: That’s right. Now the next phrase is very similar. |
| Echo: 看不见。(kànbújiàn.) |
| Anthony: This means to look but to not see. |
| Echo: 看不见。在哪里？我看不见。(Kàn bùjiàn. Zài nǎlǐ? Wǒ kàn bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: Where? I can’t see it. |
| Echo: 在哪里？我看不见。(Zài nǎlǐ? Wǒ kàn bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: Okay and our next word. |
| Echo: 吵 (chǎo) |
| Anthony: This is noisy. |
| Echo: 吵。你的狗太吵了。(Chǎo. Nǐ de gǒu tài chǎole.) |
| Anthony: Your dog is really noisy. |
| Echo: Yeah and I have a baby here. |
| Anthony: Yeah. |
| Echo: 你的狗太吵了。(Nǐ de gǒu tài chǎole.) |
| Anthony: I was on a train ride recently and it was in the morning and I was sleeping and there was this kid just running down the hallway being really loud. |
| Echo: Really? |
| Anthony: Yeah so I had to open up the door and say hey, you are being really loud. |
| Echo: Hah! 你太吵了。(Nǐ tài chǎole.) |
| Anthony: That’s right and that actually is… |
| Echo: 小声点。(Xiǎoshēng diǎn.) |
| Anthony: That was very effective. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| Anthony: Yeah. I stopped the kid right in his tracks and then I didn’t hear peep out of him the rest of the ride. Okay so our last word in our vocabulary section. What is it Echo? |
| Echo: 电视 (diànshì) |
| Anthony: And this is the word for television. |
| Echo: 电视。你喜欢看电视吗？ (Diànshì. Nǐ xǐhuān kàn diànshì ma?) |
| Anthony: Do you like to watch television? |
| Echo: 你喜欢看电视吗？(Nǐ xǐhuān kàn diànshì ma?)Anthony. |
| Anthony: Not really, at least not in China. |
| Echo: Not in China? |
| Anthony: Not China. Okay so we are done with the vocab section. Let’s jump right into the grammar point. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Anthony: So the focus of today’s grammar point are resultative verb complements for two specific verbs but don’t get scared away. That’s a big name but it’s actually pretty easy. |
| Echo: Right. |
| Anthony: And we are going to take you through this step by step. |
| Echo: Okay. |
| Anthony: Starting with the first verb. |
| Echo: Okay first verb is 听 (Tīng) |
| Anthony: And this is to listen and we have another verb |
| Echo: 看 (Kàn) |
| Anthony: Which means to see. Now this verb complement tells us a specific result that has occurred due to an action. |
| Echo: Right. So let’s take a look at the example from the dialogue first (我)听不见。((Wǒ) tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: I wasn’t able to hear. |
| Echo: (我)听不见。( (Wǒ) tīng bùjiàn.) And first character 听 (Tīng) is a verb, is a action and the second two characters are actually the result 不见.(Bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: Not to see. Now when we put these two together, we have |
| Echo: 听不见。(Tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: To be unable to hear. |
| Echo: Right 听不见。(Tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: Let’s go through some examples using not to be able to hear. |
| Echo: 大声点，我听不见。(Dàshēng diǎn, wǒ tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: Turn up the volume a little, I can’t hear. |
| Echo: 大声点，我听不见。 (Dàshēng diǎn, wǒ tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: Okay our next example. |
| Echo: 太吵了，我听不见。(Tài chǎole, wǒ tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: It’s too noisy, I can’t hear. |
| Echo: 太吵了，我听不见。(Tài chǎole, wǒ tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: Now you can hear sounds but you can’t comprehend the sounds. |
| Echo: Right. |
| Anthony: You don’t know what they mean. Okay let’s go on to our next example. |
| Echo: 声音太小了，我听不见。(Shēngyīn tài xiǎole, wǒ tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: The volume is too low, I can’t hear. |
| Echo: 声音太小了，我听不见。(Shēngyīn tài xiǎole, wǒ tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: Okay. So we’ve gone through some examples using to be unable to hear. |
| Echo: 听不见。(Tīng bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: Now what about to be unable to see. |
| Echo: 看不见。(Kàn bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: And the resultative verb complement is, Echo, take us through a few sample sentences. |
| Echo: 太黑了，我看不见。(Tài hēile, wǒ kàn bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: It’s too dark, I can’t see. |
| Echo: 太黑了，我看不见。(Tài hēile, wǒ kàn bùjiàn.) and 不见 (Bùjiàn) is a result of it being too dark. |
| Anthony: Okay. So Echo, what’s our next example? |
| Echo: 太小了，我看不见。(Tài xiǎole, wǒ kàn bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: It’s too small, I can’t see it. |
| Echo: 太小了，我看不见。 (Tài xiǎole, wǒ kàn bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: Now since the object was too small, you can’t make out what it was. Maybe if you are trying to read a book and the print was too small, you couldn’t read. |
| Echo: Yeah 太小了，我看不见。(Tài xiǎole, wǒ kàn bùjiàn.) |
| Anthony: So we’ve introduced you to one verb complement. Now let’s take you to the next one. |
| Echo: 不懂。 (Bù dǒng.) |
| Anthony: Not to be able to understand. And this verb complement is used mainly with to look and to hear. |
| Echo: Right 看不懂，听不懂。 (Kàn bù dǒng, tīng bù dǒng.) |
| Anthony: That’s right. Okay so we have a sample sentence here for you guys. |
| Echo: 他听不懂中文。(Tā tīng bù dǒng zhōngwén.) |
| Anthony: He doesn’t understand Chinese. He can hear Chinese but he doesn’t comprehend what’s being said to him. |
| Echo: Yeah 他听不懂中文。我听不懂，请再说一次。(Tā tīng bù dǒng zhōngwén. Wǒ tīng bù dǒng, qǐng zàishuō yīcì.) |
| Anthony: I didn’t understand, can you say it one more time. |
| Echo: Very, very useful. 我听不懂，请再说一次。(Wǒ tīng bù dǒng, qǐng zàishuō yīcì.) |
| Anthony: Yeah and this is if somebody is talking to you fast or if somebody for some reason has food in their mouth. Okay so we’ve taken a look at to hear and not understand. |
| Echo: Yeah 听不懂。(Tīng bù dǒng.) |
| Anthony: And let’s take a look at to see but not understand. |
| Echo: 看不懂。(Kàn bù dǒng.) |
| Anthony: So our first sample sentence is |
| Echo: 这是什么？我看不懂。(Zhè shì shénme? Wǒ kàn bù dǒng.) |
| Anthony: What is this, I don’t understand it. |
| Echo: 这是什么？我看不懂。 (Zhè shì shénme? Wǒ kàn bù dǒng.) |
| Anthony: Yeah this often happens when I am at a grocery store and I am reading the back of food labels and I don’t understand what’s in this. |
| Echo: 我看不懂汉字。(Wǒ kàn bù dǒng hànzì.) |
| Anthony: Yeah I can’t read Chinese. |
| Echo: 我看不懂汉字。(Wǒ kàn bù dǒng hànzì.) |
| Anthony: I can see the Chinese characters but I don’t know what they mean. |
| Echo: Yeah or 这本书我看不懂。(Zhè běn shū wǒ kàn bù dǒng.) |
| Anthony: I don’t understand this book. |
| Echo: 这本书我看不懂。(Zhè běn shū wǒ kàn bù dǒng.) |
| Anthony: Okay Echo, let’s review. We’ve learned four phrases today. |
| Echo: 看不见 (Kàn bùjiàn) |
| Anthony: To look but to not see. |
| Echo: 看不懂 (Kàn bù dǒng) |
| Anthony: To look but to not understand. |
| Echo: 听不见 (Tīng bùjiàn) |
| Anthony: To listen, but to not hear. |
| Echo: 听不懂 (Tīng bù dǒng) |
| Anthony: To listen but to not understand. |
| Echo: Right. |
| Anthony: Now for our listeners, if there is anything that you did not understand in this lesson. |
| Echo: 听不懂。(Tīngbùdǒng.) |
| Anthony: That’s right. You can come to chineseclass101.com. Sign up for a premium subscription. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| Anthony: You will get access to our PDF lesson notes. |
| Echo: Right. |
| Anthony: There you are going to get all the characters, all the translations including pinyin. This is a really helpful study tool. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
Outro |
| Anthony: Okay with that said, from Beijing, I am Anthony. |
| Echo: 我是Echo。(Wǒ shì.) |
| Anthony: Thank you for listening and bye bye. |
| Echo: Bye bye 下次见。(Xià cì jiàn.) |
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