Dialogue

Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Anthony: Welcome to chineseclass101.com, the fastest, easiest and most fun way to learn Chinese.
Echo: 大家好, 我是Echo。(Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì Echo.)
Anthony: And I am Anthony and this is our 18th lesson in our second season of our beginner series.
Echo: Yes the title of this lesson is The Cutest Chinese Kitten.
Anthony: The cutest. Now from my experience, I found that many Chinese people love to have pets.
Echo: Yeah all kinds of pets, not just cats and dogs.
Anthony: Right. So in today’s lesson, we are going to go over some different types of pets.
Echo: And also teach you to ask the name of others pets.
Anthony: That’s right. Now before we go to our dialogue, if you are listening to this podcast on iTunes and you haven’t signed up for a chineseclass101.com, come to chineseclass101.com, enter in your email address and you are going to have access to a bunch of great lessons. Okay so now, on to our dialogue.
DIALOGUE
你的猫真可爱,她叫什么?(Nǐ de māo zhēn kěài, tā jiào shénme?)
她叫咪咪。(Tā jiào Mīmi.)
咪咪,过来。(Mīmi, guòlái.)
Anthony: One more time, a little bit slower.
你的猫真可爱,她叫什么?(Nǐ de māo zhēn kěài, tā jiào shénme?)
她叫咪咪。(Tā jiào Mīmi.)
咪咪,过来。(Mīmi, guòlái.)
Anthony: One more time with English.
Echo: 你的猫真可爱 (Nǐ de māo zhēn kěài)
Anthony: Your cat is really cute.
Echo: 她叫什么?(tā jiào shénme?)
Anthony: What’s her name?
Echo: 她叫咪咪。(Tā jiào Mīmi.)
Anthony: Her name is meme.
Echo: 咪咪,过来。(Mīmi, guòlái.)
Anthony: Meme, come here.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Anthony: So Echo, I have a couple of friends who have cats and dogs as pets.
Echo: Yeah me too.
Anthony: But one thing I noticed about pet names here in China are, there are very simple syllables repeated.
Echo: Yeah like 胖胖 (Pàng pàng) or 多多 (Duōduō) or in the dialogue 咪咪.(Mī mī.)
Anthony: Yes and my question is, is there a reason for that?
Echo: Yes because the name is very cute sounding and it’s easier to say when you duplicate the sound.
Anthony: Okay so in our vocab section, we have a bunch of pets to go over.
Echo: Yeah.
Anthony: Some you may already know but a few others that you may not know.
Echo: That’s right. So let’s go to the vocab section now.
VOCAB LIST
Anthony: And now the vocab section.
Echo: 猫 (Māo)
Anthony: Cat.
Echo: 猫, 猫. 狗 (Māo, māo. Gǒu)
Anthony: Dog.
Echo: 狗, 狗. 金鱼 (Gǒu, gǒu. Jīnyú)
Anthony: Koi fish.
Echo: 金鱼, 金鱼. 小猫 (Jīnyú, jīnyú. Xiǎo māo)
Anthony: Kitten.
Echo: 小猫, 小猫. 小狗 (Xiǎo māo, xiǎo māo. Xiǎo gǒu)
Anthony: Puppy.
Echo: 小狗, 小狗. 可爱 (Xiǎo gǒu, xiǎo gǒu. Kě'ài)
Anthony: Cute.
Echo: 可爱, 可爱. 淘气 (Kě'ài, kě'ài. Táoqì)
Anthony: Naughty.
Echo: 淘气, 淘气. 乖 (Táoqì, táoqì. Guāi)
Anthony: To be well behaved.
Echo: 乖, 乖 (Guāi, guāi)
Anthony: Okay so like we mentioned earlier, today’s lesson focuses around pets.
Echo: Yes.
VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE
Anthony: And pet names. Okay so Echo, what is our first pet?
Echo: 猫 (Māo)
Anthony: Cat.
Echo: 猫 (Māo)
Anthony: And our sample sentence
Echo: 我有一只猫 (Wǒ yǒuyī zhǐ māo)
Anthony: I have one cat.
Echo: 我有一只猫 (Wǒ yǒuyī zhǐ māo)
Anthony: And it’s important to note the measure word here for cats.
Echo: 只 (Zhǐ)
Anthony: You can use this for dogs too. So our next vocab word.
Echo: 狗 (Gǒu)
Anthony: Dog.
Echo: 狗 (Gǒu)
Anthony: That’s third tone.
Echo: 我养狗。(Wǒ yǎng gǒu.)
Anthony: I raise dogs.
Echo: 你养狗吗 (Nǐ yǎng gǒu ma) Anthony?
Anthony: I’ve raised a few in my day. Turned out pretty well.
Echo: 金鱼 (Jīnyú)
Anthony: Koi fish.
Echo: 他有四条金鱼。(Tā yǒu sìtiáo jīnyú.)
Anthony: He has four Koi fish.
Echo: 他有四条金鱼。(Tā yǒu sìtiáo jīnyú.)
Anthony: So Echo, what’s the measure word used for fish here?
Echo: 条 (Tiáo)
Anthony: Second tone.
Echo: Yes 条 (Tiáo)
Anthony: And we want to use this measure word for all types of fish.
Echo: Right no matter how big it is or how small it is.
Anthony: Okay our next two vocab words are cute.
Echo: 小猫 (Xiǎo māo)
Anthony: Kitten.
Echo: 小猫。你的小猫多大?(Xiǎo māo. Nǐ de xiǎo māo duōdà?)
Anthony: How old is your kitten?
Echo: 你的小猫多大?(Nǐ de xiǎo māo duōdà?)
Anthony: Echo, what do you think the age is where a kitten turns into a cat?
Echo: I think after one.
Anthony: After one year?
Echo: Yeah.
Anthony: So one year is the cutoff point. Okay our next one, puppy.
Echo: 小狗 (Xiǎo gǒu)
Anthony: It’s a little dog.
Echo: Yeah 小狗 (Xiǎo gǒu)
Anthony: My puppy is one year old.
Echo: 我的小狗一岁。(Wǒ de xiǎo gǒu yī suì.)
Anthony: But when it hits two, it’s going to turn into a dog. Okay so we have a few words coming up that you can use to describe your pets.
Echo: Right. First one is 可爱 (Kě'ài)
Anthony: Cute.
Echo: 可爱。牠真可爱。(Kě'ài. Tā zhēn kě'ài.)
Anthony: It’s really cute.
Echo: 牠真可爱。(Tā zhēn kě'ài.)
Anthony: Okay. If it’s not being cute, it’s been
Echo: 淘气 (Táoqì)
Anthony: Naughty.
Echo: 淘气。他有点淘气。(Táoqì. Tā yǒudiǎn táoqì.)
Anthony: It’s a little naughty.
Echo: 他有点淘气。(Tā yǒudiǎn táoqì.)
Anthony: And instead of having a cute dog, I rather have this kind of dog.
Echo: 乖 (Guāi)
Anthony: Well behaved dog.
Echo: 乖。我的小猫很乖。(Guāi. Wǒ de xiǎo māo hěn guāi.)
Anthony: Yeah my kitten is very well behaved.
Echo: Or 我的小狗很乖。(Wǒ de xiǎo gǒu hěn guāi.)
Anthony: My puppy is very well behaved. Okay so to review, we’ve gone over a few pets. For example
Echo: 猫 (Māo)
Anthony: Cat.
Echo: 狗 (Gǒu)
Anthony: Dog.
Echo: 小猫 (Xiǎo māo)
Anthony: Kitty.
Echo: 小狗 (Xiǎo gǒu)
Anthony: Puppy.
Echo: And 金鱼 (Jīnyú)
Anthony: Koi fish or goldfish.
Echo: Right.
Anthony: Also we’ve gone over couple of adjectives that you can use to describe your pets.
Echo: 可爱 (Kě'ài)
Anthony: Cute.
Echo: 淘气 (Táoqì)
Anthony: Naughty.
Echo: Or your favorite 乖。(Guāi.)
Anthony: Well behaved. So that does it for our vocab section, Let’s go into the grammar point.
Echo: Okay.

Lesson focus

Anthony: In today’s grammar focus, we are going to be reviewing the verb
Echo: 叫 (Jiào)
Anthony: And this is to be called. We saw it used in this sentence in our dialogue.
Echo: 她叫什么?(Tā jiào shénme?)
Anthony: What is her name?
Echo: 她叫什么?(Tā jiào shénme?)
Anthony: And the literal translation is her to be called what.
Echo: Right and the answer was 她叫咪咪。(Tā jiào mī mī.)
Anthony: Her name is meme.
Echo: 她叫咪咪。(Tā jiào mī mī.)
Anthony: She to be called meme.
Echo: Right. The verb 叫 (Jiào) connects our pronoun 她 (Tā) with our name meme.
Anthony: Yeah and this is the most useful way to introduce either yourself or a pet in Chinese.
Echo: Right. This structure can be used in both casual and formal situations.
Anthony: Now we are going to go over some common sample sentences that you can use when asking about pet names.
Echo: 你们的小狗叫什么?(Nǐmen de xiǎo gǒu jiào shénme?)
Anthony: What’s your puppy’s name?
Echo: 你们的小狗叫什么?(Nǐmen de xiǎo gǒu jiào shénme?)
Anthony: Or literally your puppy to be called what.
Echo: Yes.
Anthony: Now the response to this question can be
Echo: 我们的小狗叫旺旺。(Wǒmen de xiǎo gǒu jiào wàngwàng.)
Anthony: Our puppy’s name is Wang Wang.
Echo: 我们的小狗叫旺旺。(Wǒmen de xiǎo gǒu jiào wàngwàng.)
Anthony: Literally it’s our puppy to be called Wang Wang.
Echo: Yeah Wang Wang is the way Chinese dogs bark.
Anthony: Yeah instead of Roof Roof it’s Wang Wang.
Echo: Yes Wang Wang It’s cute. 他们的小猫叫什么?(Tāmen de xiǎo māo jiào shénme?)
Anthony: What’s their kitty’s name?
Echo: 他们的小猫叫什么?(Tāmen de xiǎo māo jiào shénme?)
Anthony: Yes their kitten to be called what?
Echo: 他们的小猫叫嘻嘻。(Tāmen de xiǎo māo jiào xī xī.)
Anthony: Their cat’s name is Xixi.
Echo: 他们的小猫叫嘻嘻。(Tāmen de xiǎo māo jiào xī xī.)
Anthony: Their kitten to be called Xixi.
Echo: Also you can put 名字 (Míngzì)“name” in the sentence. 她叫什么名字?(Tā jiào shénme míngzì?)
Anthony: Her to be called what name?
Echo: 她叫什么名字?(Tā jiào shénme míngzì?)
Anthony: Or what is her name.
Echo: To answer this, you can say 她的名字叫小淘气。(Tā de míngzì jiào xiǎo táoqì.)
Anthony: Her name is little rascal.
Echo: 她的名字叫小淘气。(Tā de míngzì jiào xiǎo táoqì.)
Anthony: Okay so we are going to give you two more sample sentences using the verb to be called.
Echo: 叫。你的鱼叫什么名字?(Jiào. Nǐ de yú jiào shénme míngzì?)
Anthony: What’s the name of your fish?
Echo: 你的鱼叫什么名字?(Nǐ de yú jiào shénme míngzì?)
Anthony: Or literally your fish to be called what name.
Echo: 我的鸟叫Polly。(Wǒ de niǎo jiào Polly.)
Anthony: My bird’s name is Polly.
Echo: 我的鸟叫Polly。(Wǒ de niǎo jiào Polly.)
Anthony: My bird to be called Polly.
Echo: Yeah.
Anthony: To review. When using the verb to be called, we want to follow this structure.
Echo: Subject plus 叫 (Jiào) plus the name.
Anthony: Now if you want to add the word name
Echo: 名字 (Míngzì)
Anthony: You just put it before to be called.
Echo: Right 她的名字叫咪咪。(Tā de míngzì jiào mī mī.)
Anthony: Yeah her name to be called is meme.
Echo: Right.

Outro

Anthony: Okay so that’s it and that’s the end of our podcast.
Echo: Right.
Anthony: If you haven’t yet signed up an account with chineseclass101.com, it couldn’t be easier. Echo, what do you have to do?
Echo: Just come to chineseclass101.com and enter your email address.
Anthony: That’s right. All you have to do, type in your email address and you are automatically going to get access to a bunch of lessons that’s going to get you learning Chinese faster, quicker and in the most fun way possible.
Echo: Right.
Anthony: Okay so with that said, from Beijing, I am Anthony.
Echo: 我是 (Wǒ shì) Echo。
Anthony: Thanks for listening and we will see you next time.
Echo: 下次见,(Xià cì jiàn,) Bye bye.
Anthony: Bye bye.

Comments

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25 Comments
Please to leave a comment.
ChineseClass101.com
2010-08-31 18:30:00

Hi ChineseClass101.com Listeners! Have you ever known a cat to come when called?

ChineseClass101.com
2020-07-03 08:40:59

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

robert groulx
2020-06-29 22:16:31

thank you for the lesson

my favorite words are 猫真可爱,她叫什么?

robert

ChineseClass101.com
2019-03-22 16:54:28

Hello Gerald,

不客气!We often use '大' to talk about age, for example 他多大? How old is he?

When we talk about the age of infants/ babies between 0 and 12 months old, we say for example 一个月大. We don't use 岁 because technically 岁 means 'year'.

As always, let us know if you have any questions.

Ngai Lam

Team ChineseClass101.com

Gerald
2019-03-21 03:11:20

谢谢你Ngai!

我还有一个问题 😅 why when you say 他一个月大 there's a 大 and no a 岁?you use 大 for very little age?

ChineseClass101.com
2019-03-20 17:25:32

Hello Gerald,

Thank you for your comment. You can say:

一个狗而且一个小猫 => 一只狗和一只小猫。(The same measure word as in 两只宠物)

小星老,她十五岁,这年她十六岁。小黑很小,他一月岁 => 小星已经老了,她今年十六岁。小黑很小,他一个月大。

昨天我女朋友给我这个小猫,很可爱 => 昨天我女朋友给了我这只小猫,他很可爱!

课 means lesson, 堂 is the measure word for 课.

As always, let us know if you have any questions.

Ngai Lam

Team ChineseClass101.com

Gerald
2019-03-18 23:24:47

大家好!谢谢你的课!

这课是关于宠物的, 不是吗?我有两只宠物, 一个狗而且一个小猫。狗的名字叫小星😄 小猫的名字叫小黑 (Blackie lol). 小星老,她十五岁,这年她十六岁。小黑很小,他一月岁。 昨天我女朋友给我这个小猫,很可爱!

1. is there any difference between 课 and 堂课?

ChineseClass101.com
2018-01-04 13:12:44

Hello, Olivia,

Happy New Year and nice to meet you.?

Cho

Team ChineseClass101.com

Olivia
2017-12-31 13:04:19

我的中文名字是安利雅!

卫力 (aka Alexis)
2015-10-01 01:21:39

谢谢!

Team ChineseClass101.com
2015-10-01 00:15:58

Hi 卫力,

95 points!

My family had a dog.

我们家 以前/曾经 有一只狗。

Because we have no past term for verbs themselves, we should add "before" to show the past tense.

before can be translated into 以前,曾经。。。

我们家有了狗 means we bought a dog or a dog came to my house.

有了= have, own

What should be paid attention is that, 了 can show the past tense of the verb before it, but the whole sentence, maybe not.

Cho

Team ChineseClass101.com

卫力 (aka Alexis)
2015-09-29 18:56:01

大家好,

My family had a dog. Her name was called Dove. My mom loved Dove very much. When Dove died, we were especially sad. Now, we have no dog.

我的家有了狗。她的名字叫 Dove. 我的妈妈非常爱 Dove. 当Dove 死了的时候,我们特别伤心。现在没有狗。

(Wǒ de jiā yǒule gǒu. Tā de míngzì jiào Dove. Wǒ de māmā fēicháng ài Dove. Dāng Dove sǐle de shíhòu, wǒmen tèbié shāngxīn. Xiànzài méiyǒu gǒu.)

再见,

卫力

ChineseClass101.com
2015-01-28 18:43:00

Hi Ingkarat,

Yes you can use the adjectives 乖 and 淘气 like your examples.

小朋友很乖 :thumbsup:

我的孩子很淘气 :smiling_imp:

Olivia

Team ChineseClass101.com

Ingkarat
2014-11-07 01:50:40

Is it appropriate to use the word 乖 and 淘气 with the person or these are the words that can use only with the animal

For Example

小朋友很乖 or 我的孩子很淘气

ChineseClass101.com
2012-09-04 17:53:31

Hi Herman,

我有一只猫,不过我也喜欢狗。但是在城市里养猫比较方便,所以我养了猫。希望我以后有机会养一只大狗 :mrgreen:

你的句子里有几个小问题,我帮你改了:

“狗很爱跟人开玩笑,也很忠心。”

“它一直想跟着我去任何地方玩。”

“我从别的地方回来的时候,它总是把它的尾巴摇来摇去地迎接我,表示它很开心。”

Echo

Team ChineseClass101.com

Herman
2012-09-03 22:52:18

我想 狗比猫 更聪明。我喜欢养狗可我不喜欢猫。狗很爱跟人开玩笑它也很忠心。我曾经养过一只狗。 我一直要跟随我去玩任何地方。我从别的地方回来的时候它总是迎接我把它的尾巴摇来摇去表示它很开心。

可是我养的猫是很懒惰的,它只爱睡觉和吃。连捉老鼠也不要。

Sorry to cc101's friend who like cat, the above is only for my 中文练习.

Jane
2011-03-21 11:28:32

Hi phoenix_darshan,

You are not being finnicky at all. Thanks for your feedback. Here are my answers to your question.

First, the pinyin or tone for the character 汪汪 should indeed be first tone. So after I reply to your question, I will go ahead fix the mistake in the lesson note.

Secondly, you are absolutely right about the rule of changing tone of 不 from 4th to 2nd if it followed by another 4th tone word. However, the pinyin you see on the lesson note were added from another separate software. It requires manual alteration from our staff. And unfortunately sometimes we overlook things like that and caused confusion to our learners. I apologize for that and I'll try to fix it where I can.

Thanks again for helping us to improve our service. Enjoy your lesson.

Best,

Jane:smile:

phoenix_darshan
2011-03-20 05:49:44

hi there. I noticed that the tone of wang wang is 4th tone in the pdf but i think it should be 1st tone (thats wht my dictionary says). I am sry about being very finnicky, but I am a beginner and so it requires me to study podcast along with pdfs. I also noticed that bu is always 4th tone on your pdfs even though its followed by another 4th tone.

thanks

Patrick
2010-10-27 15:14:24

Hello Jane,

Thank you so much for your detailed response. I actually value your ''complicated' response, as you provide many models and sample sentences in which I can learn from. And thank you for correcting my first sentence.

Hopefully I can periodically do some more postings in various lessons throughout this site, as I find attempting to use newly learned vocabulary in my own context can help me remember better. Hope to come across more of your responses and teaching in the future!

Take care,

Patrick

Jane
2010-10-19 12:15:22

Hi Patrick,

Can I suggest first that in your Chinese article the first sentence should be "我也有可爱的猫". "都" means all such as "我们都有猫".

Now back to your question. If you want to ask whether someone behaves more like a cat or a dog, you could say "他的性格是更像猫还是更像狗". It is a bit complicated cos the sentence also involved using the making preference pattern "是...还是..." . some other sample sentences are

他长得像他妈妈(一样)。He looks like his mom.

天上的白云像一朵朵的棉花。The cloud in the sky look like (clusters of) cotton.

他画的马像真的一样。The horse he painted is so real.

So the pattern "像...一样" is used when you describe

"一样" cam be omited without changing the meaning of the sentence.

Hope that's not a too complicated answer for your rather simple question. Enjoy your Chinese study.

Jane

Patrick
2010-10-15 10:21:55

我都有可愛的貓。 她的名字叫Speckles.

但是我叫Speckles 的時候,她不會過來。

我覺得因為貓比狗有更多自己的想法,

所以想過來就過來, 想不過來就不過來。

ChineseClass101 的朋友。 你像貓多或者像狗多?

Can I ask a question about how I use 像 in the above sentence? Am I using it correctly in the vocabulary and grammatical sense? I want to use it to mean ''similar to'. Can you give me some models of correct sentences, or maybe point me to a lesson number/dialogue that uses this construction? Thank you very much.

-Patrick

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