Learn new adjectives to use when talking about heavy and light objects
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome to chineseclass101. I am David. |
| Echo: 大家好，我是 (Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: Yes Echo and we are here with lesson 10 in series 1 of our elementary set. |
| Echo: 没错，第十课。(Méi cuò, dì shí kè.) |
| David: And you madam are looking very comfortable today. |
| Echo: 哦，真的吗？(Ó, zhēn de ma?) |
| David: Is it related to our topic of discussion. |
| Echo: 我想按摩。(Wǒ xiǎng ànmó.) |
| David: Yes. |
| Echo: That’s true. |
| David: We’ve got another lesson about the massage and the dialogue is between him and the person who is giving him the massage. Before we take you to the dialogue, we do want to point out that if you have any questions or comments, come to chineseclass101.com and leave them on the site. |
| Echo: And you can share your experience of 按摩 (Ànmó) with us. |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: We are looking forward to hearing it. |
| David: If it’s family friendly. Anyway, come to the site, check us out, leave a comment. We hope to see you there. For now, let’s go on to the dialogue. This is coercion. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A:哎呀，你的背部非常硬。(Aiya, nǐ de bèibù fēicháng yìng.) |
| B:是吗? 不正常吗? (Shì ma? Bù zhèngcháng ma?) |
| A:你看。(Nǐ kàn.) |
| B:Aaaaaaah!!! (Aaaaaaah!!!) |
| A:你应该多来我们这儿做按摩. (Nǐ yīnggāi duō lái wǒmen zhèr zuò ànmó.) |
| B:不用了。Aaaaahhhh.... 好，好吧。(Bùyòng le. Aaaaahhhh.... Hǎo, hǎoba.) |
| Once more slowly. |
| A:哎呀，你的背部非常硬。(Aiya, nǐ de bèibù fēicháng yìng.) |
| B:是吗? 不正常吗? (Shì ma? Bù zhèngcháng ma?) |
| A:你看。(Nǐ kàn.) |
| B:Aaaaaaah!!! (Aaaaaaah!!!) |
| A:你应该多来我们这儿做按摩. (Nǐ yīnggāi duō lái wǒmen zhèr zuò ànmó.) |
| B:不用了。Aaaaahhhh.... 好，好吧。(Bùyòng le. Aaaaahhhh.... Hǎo, hǎoba.) |
| Once more, with English translation. |
| A:哎呀，你的背部非常硬。(Aiya, nǐ de bèibù fēicháng yìng.) |
| A: Goodness gracious. Your back is very stiff. |
| B:是吗? 不正常吗? (Shì ma? Bù zhèngcháng ma?) |
| B: Is it? That's not normal? |
| A:你看。(Nǐ kàn.) |
| A: Look. |
| B:Aaaaaaah!!! (Aaaaaaah!!!) |
| B: Aaaaaah!!! |
| A:你应该多来我们这儿做按摩. (Nǐ yīnggāi duō lái wǒmen zhèr zuò ànmó.) |
| A: You should come here for a massage more often. |
| B:不用了。Aaaaahhhh.... 好，好吧。(Bùyòng le. Aaaaahhhh.... Hǎo, hǎoba.) |
| B: That's not needed. Aaaahhhh....okay, I will. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Echo: That’s a good service. |
| David: He is lying mercilessly on the table. I mean Echo, you’ve been through this. I know you’ve gone to some massages where these – I mean these people massage for living. Their fingers are strong. They can inflict serious damage and you kind of ah…. |
| Echo: 所以我们要小心。(Suǒyǐ wǒmen yào xiǎoxīn.) |
| David: Yes. And if you are listening, you’ve got to be careful too. Anyway, we’ve got some great vocab for you today. It’s the second part of our massage set. So we are going to focus on vocab you are going to use when you are on the table. |
| Echo: And it may save you from this iteration. That’s very, very important. |
| David: Yeah and we are also going to teach you how to tell people to massage a little bit lighter, a little bit harder and that kind of stuff. This is useful too. Okay so let’s take you through the vocab first. Echo – and now the vocab section. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Echo: 背部 (bèibù) |
| David: Back. |
| Echo: 硬 (yìng) |
| David: Hard. |
| Echo: 软 (ruǎn) |
| David: Soft. |
| Echo: 重 (zhòng) |
| David: Heavy. |
| Echo: 轻 (qīng) |
| David: Light. |
| Echo: 正常 (zhèngcháng) |
| David: Normal. |
| Echo: 应该 (yīnggāi) |
| David: Should. |
| Echo: 胳膊 (gēbo) |
| David: Arm. |
| Echo: 腿 (tuǐ) |
| David: Legs. |
| Echo: 脚 (jiǎo) |
| David: Feet. |
| Echo: 足疗 (zúliáo) |
| David: Foot massage. |
| Echo: 足疗 (zúliáo) |
| David: Okay. First question I’ve got for you. In the last lesson, we taught people how to say back. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Echo: 背。(Bèi.) |
| David: Here we’ve got another word for back. |
| Echo: 背部。(Bèibù.) |
| David: What’s the difference? |
| Echo: I guess 背部 (Bèibù) is more formal. It’s more professional. |
| David: It’s literally back part. |
| Echo: Because this lady who is giving out the massage said that 你的背部非常硬 (Nǐ de bèibù fēicháng yìng) She is supposed to be professional. |
| David: She is being a bit of an expert here. She uses maybe a bit of a medical term even umm. This is your back component that’s in pain. Anyway, that’s what’s going on here. She could easily have just said, hey, your back is in the pain. |
| Echo: 你的背非常硬。(Nǐ de bèi fēicháng yìng.) |
| David: Yeah. Now the next thing we wanted to point out here is we’ve got four adjectives. We’ve got hard |
| Echo: 硬。(Yìng.) |
| David: Soft |
| Echo: 软。(Ruǎn.) |
| David: And then we’ve got heavy. |
| Echo: 重。(Zhòng.) |
| David: And light. |
| Echo: 轻。(Qīng.) |
| David: In the dialogue, the woman says your back is really hard. |
| Echo: 你的背部非常硬。(Nǐ de bèibù fēicháng yìng.) |
| David: Now that’s just like English. And there are a lot of times you are going to run into that word. If you take the train for instance, they have things like hard seats. |
| Echo: 硬座。(Yìngzuò.) |
| David: Hard sleepers. |
| Echo: 硬卧。(Yìngwò.) |
| David: And they have got soft seats. |
| Echo: 软座。(Ruǎn zuò.) |
| David: And soft sleepers. |
| Echo: 软卧。(Ruǎnwò.) |
| David: So those adjectives work just like English. If you go for a massage though when you are asking them you know a little bit harder or a little bit softer, we are going to use a different adjective. |
| Echo: 重一点儿。(Zhòng yīdiǎn er.) |
| David: A little bit harder. |
| Echo: 轻一点儿。(Qīng yīdiǎn er.) |
| David: A little bit lighter and technically, that’s not harder and softer, it’s like heavier and lighter. So that’s a different kind of adjective than we use in Engilsh. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Right. So let’s hear that one more time. If they are not massaging you hard enough, you say |
| Echo: 重一点儿。(Zhòng yīdiǎn er.) |
| David: If you need it a bit lighter |
| Echo: 轻一点儿。(Qīng yīdiǎn er.) |
| David: Let’s practice. A little bit harder please. |
| Echo: 重一点儿，请重一点儿。(Zhòng yīdiǎn er, qǐng zhòng yīdiǎn er.) |
| David: Softer please. |
| Echo: 请轻一点儿。(Qǐng qīng yīdiǎn er.) |
| David: The next vocab word we want to highlight is the word for normal. |
| Echo: 正常。(Zhèngcháng.) |
| David: Yeah. Everything is normal. |
| Echo: 一切都很正常。(Yīqiè dōu hěn zhèngcháng.) |
| David: It’s not normal. |
| Echo: 这不正常。(Zhè bù zhèngcháng.) |
| David: This is not normal. |
| Echo: 这不正常。(Zhè bù zhèngcháng.) |
| David: Our next word is an auxiliary verb |
| Echo: 正常。(Zhèngcháng.) |
| David: Now – now we’ve taught you this before. Remember, auxiliary verbs come before verbs. They are helper verbs. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Like the word should in English or could or would. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Right. And here this means should. |
| Echo: 你应该多运动。(Nǐ yīnggāi duō yùndòng.) |
| David: Yeah. You should exercise more or you should come back. |
| Echo: 你应该回来。(Nǐ yīnggāi huílái.) |
| David: Right. You should go. |
| Echo: 你应该去。(Nǐ yīnggāi qù.) |
| David: Right. And we round that off with a couple more body parts. We’ve got legs. |
| Echo: 腿。(Tuǐ.) |
| David: Feet |
| Echo: 脚。(Jiǎo.) |
| David: So my legs are in pain. |
| Echo: 我的腿特别疼。(Wǒ de tuǐ tèbié téng.) |
| David: Or you can say, Ey… my feet are extremely sore. |
| Echo: 我的脚很酸。(Wǒ de jiǎo hěn suān.) |
| David: Yeah and then our last word actually is, it doesn’t really make that much sense for an English speaker. It’s technically foot massage but that’s not what it literally translates into. |
| Echo: 足疗。(Zúliáo.) |
| David: It’s like foot treatment. |
| Echo: Yeah foot treatment. |
| David: Yeah. It’s actually kind of funny because in Chinese medicine, the foot is connected to all different parts of the body. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So they will give you the foot massage and while you are deep in pain and while they stab your feet, they will be like, your kidneys are no good or that’s your heart…. |
| Echo: You know what, your heart is not good. |
| David: Like you can tell me that…It’s grammar time. |
| Echo: Yes we can. |
| David: Okay and our grammar section today actually is all about telling people or asking people if things are normal or not normal. So let’s go to the grammar section now. In the dialogue, we heard this sentence. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Echo: 是吗？不正常吗？(Shì ma? Bù zhèngcháng ma?) |
| David: Now in earlier lessons, we taught you another way of asking questions using something called duplication or reduplication. Now previously, we taught you this with adjectives. For instance, in the sentence, is it good? |
| Echo: 好不好？(Hǎobù hǎo?) |
| David: Right. So we put the adjective and then the word for no or not. |
| Echo: 不。(Bù.) |
| David: And then we repeat or reduplicate the adjective. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Now we can also do this. We’ve taught you with verbs. Are you going to eat or not? |
| Echo: 你吃不吃？(Nǐ chī bù chī?) |
| David: Right. In our beginner level though, we focused on one character verbs. Right but in Chinese, Chinese people really love to use two character verbs. It feels a bit more natural. So in this lesson, we are going to teach you how to use reduplication with two-character verbs and adjectives and auxiliary verbs. It’s awesome. Very powerful stuff. We are going to start you off with the adjectives though and the first adjective we ran into in this lesson. |
| Echo: 正常。(Zhèngcháng.) |
| David: Which means normal. So in our dialogue, they said, not normal. |
| Echo: 不正常。(Bù zhèngcháng.) |
| David: How would you say, is this normal or not? |
| Echo: 正不正常? (Zhèng bù zhèngcháng?) |
| David: Right. You will notice we’ve got the reduplication but we are only repeating the first character of the verb |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: You will notice we’ve got the reduplication but we only repeat the first character the first time around. Let’s hear that again. |
| Echo: 真不正常？(Zhēn bù zhèngcháng?) |
| David: Right. How about comfortable? |
| Echo: 舒服。(Shūfú.) |
| David: Is it comfortable? |
| Echo: 舒不舒服？(Shū bú shūfú?) |
| David: Notice some reduplication again. The first time we say that adjective, we only say the first character. Okay now we can use this with more than adjectives though. We can use it with verbs as well. For instance, to like |
| Echo: 喜欢。(Xǐhuān.) |
| David: When we reduplicate this, it becomes. |
| Echo: 喜不喜欢。(Xǐ bù xǐhuān.) |
| David: Do you like it? |
| Echo: 你喜不喜欢？(Nǐ xǐ bù xǐhuān?) |
| David: We also have the verb massage. |
| Echo: 按摩。(Ànmó.) |
| David: And if we reduplicate it that becomes |
| Echo: 按不按摩？(Àn bù ànmó?) |
| David: Right. Do you want a massage? |
| Echo: 先生，按不按摩？(Xiānshēng, àn bù ànmó?) |
| David: Right. We’ve got a couple more examples for you. Before we go in, we want to point out something. It’s technically not incorrect if you repeat the whole phrase. So you can still say |
| Echo: 正常不正常。(Zhèngcháng bù zhèngcháng.) |
| David: It sounds a bit less natural. |
| Echo: Yeah because it’s too long. |
| David: It’s too long. It doesn’t fit into these four characters. It’s a bit forced. So we recommend shortening it. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Now our remaining examples are with auxiliary verbs. We’ve run into these before. First is to need. |
| Echo: 需要。(Xūyào.) |
| David: Or in reduplicated form |
| Echo: 需不需要。(Xū bù xūyào.) |
| David: Do you need it? |
| Echo: 你需不需要。(Nǐ xū bù xūyào.) |
| David: I should get it. Should |
| Echo: 应该。(Yīnggāi.) |
| David: Should I |
| Echo: 我应不应该。(Wǒ yìng bù yìng gāi.) |
| David: Should I have a massage? |
| Echo: 我应不应该去按摩？(Wǒ yìng bù yìng gāi qù ànmó?) |
| David: Perfect. And that’s the end of our grammar section. Really simple but really powerful. And this is one of the small things. This is going to mark you as a native speaker. |
| Echo: Exactly. |
Outro |
| David: Okay. Before we leave, we want to remind you, we talk a lot about the awesome premium features we’ve got on chineseclass101.com but to get them first, you have to go and sign up for free account. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: How long does it take Echo? |
| Echo: Well a couple of seconds. |
| David: It takes 7 seconds. |
| Echo: 非常快。(Fēicháng kuài.) |
| David: We had a crack science team experiment. We did science experiments. The average time it took was 7 seconds. See if you can beat the average time. |
| Echo: That sounds pretty cool. |
| David: We are sure you can. Anyway from Beijing, I am David. |
| Echo: 我是 (Wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: Thanks a lot for listening. We hope you are learning and if you have any questions or comments, leave them on the site for us. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Okay. Take care guys. |
| Echo: 网上见。(Wǎngshàng jiàn.) |
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