Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Transcript

Hi everyone, I'm Yun。
嗨大家好，我是芸。(hài dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì yún).
Welcome to the Chinese Whiteboard Lessons.
In this lesson, you'll learn basic vocabulary words and phrases for talking about language abilities.
Let's get started.
Okay, let's look at the vocabulary.
Here's a list of the 10 most commonly used languages.
Did you notice they all have something in common?
That's right, they all include the character 语 (yǔ), which means language or speech.
For example, in the first one, 英语 (yīng yǔ), English.
So 英 (yīng) here means England, so 'England-language' is English.
And the second one, 西班牙语 (xī bān yá yǔ), Spanish. 西班牙语 (xī bān yá yǔ).
So 西班牙 (xī bān yá) means Spain, the 'Spain-language' is Spanish.
And it's the same for the rest of the list.
Let's go over together.
法語 (fà yù), French, 法語 (fà yù), 法語 (fà yù).
德語 (dé yù), German, 德語 (dé yù), 德語 (dé yù).
日語 (rì yù), Japanese, 日語 (rì yù), 日語 (rì yù).
So here, the pronunciation of 日 (rì) is a little bit tricky, so pay attention to the R sound.
日 (rì), 日 (rì)
俄語 (é yǔ), Russian,
俄语 (é yǔ), 俄语 (é yǔ)
韩语 (hán yǔ), Korean
韩语 (hán yǔ), 韩语 (hán yǔ)
意大利语 (yì dà lì yǔ), Italian
意大利语 (yì dà lì yǔ), 意大利语 (yì dà lì yǔ)
葡萄牙语 (pú táo yá yǔ), Portuguese
葡萄牙语 (pú táo yá yǔ), 葡萄牙语 (pú táo yá yǔ)
And the last one, 汉语 (hàn yǔ), Chinese
汉语 (hàn yǔ), Chinese
Ok, I want you to pay attention to here, 韩语 (hán yǔ) and 汉语 (hàn yǔ).
The only difference of these two pronunciations is the tone.
Here is the second and here is the fourth.
So make sure you pronounce it right.
Next, let's look at the dialogue.
Two people met in the street.
One of them asked the other if he or she speaks English.
Listen and pay attention to how the question is posed and how it's answered.
你好 (nǐ hǎo), 请问你会说英语吗 (qǐng wèn nǐ huì shuō yīng yǔ ma)?
会的 (huì de), 我会说英语 (wǒ huì shuō yīng yǔ)。
Hello, excuse me, do you speak English?
Yes, I do, I speak English.
Now let's look at some speaking examples.
会的 (huì de), 我会说法语 (wǒ huì shuō fǎ yǔ)。
Yes, I speak French.
会的 (huì de), 我会说西班牙语 (wǒ huì shuō xī bān yá yǔ)。
Yes, I speak Spanish.
Can you now recognize the pattern to say you can speak a certain language?
The pattern is 会的 (huì de), 我会说 (wǒ huì shuō) LANGUAGE。
Yes, I speak LANGUAGE.
Let's try with some of the examples from the list.
For example,
会的 (huì de), 我会说意大利语 (wǒ huì shuō yì dà lì yǔ)。
Yes, I speak Italian.
会的 (huì de), 我会说葡萄牙语 (wǒ huì shuō pú táo yá yǔ)。
Yes, I speak Portuguese.
You might have noticed there is a 得 (de) in the pattern.
Of course you can say
会 (huì), 我会说 a certain language (wǒ huì shuō a certain language).
It's grammatically correct, it's perfectly fine.
But in spoken Chinese, we usually add the 得 (de) here to make it sound more natural.
So maybe you should try with 得 (de) next time.
Sometimes you may hear people say 中文 (zhōng wén) instead of 汉语 (hàn yǔ).
For instance, when it comes to I can speak Chinese,
you can either say 我會說漢語 (wǒ huì shuō hàn yǔ) or 我會說中文 (wǒ huì shuō zhōng wén).
Here, the two terms are interchangeable.
However, there are cases where one is proper but not the other.
In general, 中文 (zhōng wén) is more written Chinese and 汉语 (hàn yǔ) is more spoken Chinese.

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