Learn measurements in Chinese, including length, size, and distance
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome to chineseclass101.com. I am David. |
| Echo: 嗨，大家好，我是 (Hāi, dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: And Echo, we have elementary season 1, Lesson 15 for people today. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò) Winter on the Great Wall. |
| David: Right. As the title suggests, this is the lesson about what happens when you arrive in Beijing in January and your friends and family are like, you’ve got to see the great wall. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: And no matter how much you say no, I don’t… |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: You end up seeing the great wall. So… |
| Echo: Enjoy. |
| David: So we’ve got a dialogue here between two travelers, one of whom is really, really cold and since they are travel companions and friends, they are speaking casually. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: We are going to take you to the dialogue in a sec. Before we do, we want to remind you, if you upgrade your account, you can get all of these lessons instantly. The magic is through that premium lesson feed. Sticking in the iTunes ______ (0:00:52) and it will grab all of our lessons right away. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: So check that out. That said, let’s go to the dialogue. I’ve got to say it is skeptic. The great wall really is. It’s an incredible experience and if you haven’t gone yet, go! Maybe not in January though. |
| Echo: 你肯定不想在一月去。(Nǐ kěndìng bùxiǎng zài yī yuè qù.) |
| DIALOGUE |
| A:长城有6000多公里长......(Chángchéng yǒu liùqiān duō gōnglǐ cháng ......) |
| B:太冷了，我们回家吧。(Tài lěng le, wǒmen huíjiā ba.) |
| A:你说什么？我们刚刚到这儿。(Nǐ shuō shénme? Wǒmen gānggāng dào zhèr.) |
| B:冬天在这里太冷了。我快冻死了。我们走吧。(Dōngtiān zài zhèlǐ tài lěng le. Wǒ kuài dòngsǐ le. Wǒmen zǒu ba.) |
| Once more slowly. |
| A:长城有6000多公里长......(Chángchéng yǒu liùqiān duō gōnglǐ cháng ......) |
| B:太冷了，我们回家吧。(Tài lěng le, wǒmen huíjiā ba.) |
| A:你说什么？我们刚刚到这儿。(Nǐ shuō shénme? Wǒmen gānggāng dào zhèr.) |
| B:冬天在这里太冷了。我快冻死了。我们走吧。(Dōngtiān zài zhèlǐ tài lěng le. Wǒ kuài dòngsǐ le. Wǒmen zǒu ba.) |
| Once more, with English translation. |
| A:长城有6000多公里长......(Chángchéng yǒu liùqiān duō gōnglǐ cháng ......) |
| A:The Great Wall is more than six thousand kilometers long. |
| B:太冷了，我们回家吧。(Tài lěng le, wǒmen huíjiā ba.) |
| B:Oh, it's so cold, let's go back home. |
| A:你说什么？我们刚刚到这儿。(Nǐ shuō shénme? Wǒmen gānggāng dào zhèr.) |
| A:What did you say? We just got here. |
| B:冬天在这里太冷了。我快冻死了。我们走吧。(Dōngtiān zài zhèlǐ tài lěng le. Wǒ kuài dòngsǐ le. Wǒmen zǒu ba.) |
| B:It's too cold here in the winter. I'm about to freeze to death. Let's go. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: Have you… |
| Echo: 不是 (Bùshì) maybe… |
| David: But they do have bets. If you come to Beijing, you can get out to the Great wall really within an hour. |
| Echo: 对，其实下雪的话长城也是很好看的，有不同的景色。(Duì, qíshí xià xuě dehuà chángchéng yěshì hěn hǎokàn de, yǒu bùtóng de jǐngsè.) |
| David: And deadly, deadly in the winter. So that’s our dialogue. We’ve got some key vocab and phrases we want to pull to your attention. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Echo: 长城 (chángchéng) |
| David: The great wall. |
| Echo: 长 (cháng) |
| David: Long. |
| Echo: 短 (duǎn) |
| David: Short. |
| Echo: 回家 (huíjiā) |
| David: To go home. |
| Echo: 刚刚 (gānggāng) |
| David: Just now. |
| Echo: 到 (dào) |
| David: To arrive at. |
| Echo: 冷 (lěng) |
| David: Cold. |
| Echo: 冻死 (dòngsǐ) |
| David: To freeze to death. |
| Echo: 公里 (gōnglǐ) |
| David: Kilometer. |
| Echo: 公里 (gōnglǐ) |
| David: So that second last word was particularly morbid. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Echo: 冻死。(dòngsǐ.) |
| David: We hope that you do not have occasion to use that on your next trip to China. |
| Echo: 不好说。(Bù hǎoshuō.) |
| David: Unless you come in January. That being said, there is a lot of really useful vocab here. The first is obviously |
| Echo: 长城。(Chángchéng.) |
| David: The Great wall. |
| Echo: 长城。(Chángchéng.) |
| David: When you come to China especially Northern China, one of the first questions you will be asked is |
| Echo: 你去过长城吗？(Nǐ qùguò chángchéng ma?) |
| David: Have you been to the great wall? |
| Echo: 你去过长城吗？(Nǐ qùguò chángchéng ma?) |
| David: If you will notice, the first character in that word is |
| Echo: 长。(Zhǎng.) |
| David: Which literally means long. |
| Echo: 长。(Zhǎng.) |
| David: And we can use this to describe how long something is. For instance |
| Echo: 她的头发有一米长。(Tā de tóufǎ yǒuyī mǐ zhǎng.) |
| David: Her hair is one meter long. |
| Echo: 她的头发有一米长。(Tā de tóufǎ yǒuyī mǐ zhǎng.) |
| David: Literally that’s her hair has 1 meter long. |
| Echo: 她的头发有一米长。(Tā de tóufǎ yǒuyī mǐ zhǎng.) |
| David: Right. Now the opposite of long is |
| Echo: 短。(Duǎn.) |
| David: Short. |
| Echo: 短。(Duǎn.) |
| David: As in the sentence, this bed is too short. |
| Echo: 这张床太短了。(Zhè zhāng chuáng tài duǎnle.) |
| David: This bed is too short. |
| Echo: 这张床太短了。(Zhè zhāng chuáng tài duǎnle.) |
| David: Right. 张 is the measure word for bed. Don’t forget we’ve got this 太 (Tài) adjective 了(Le) structure. |
| Echo: 太短了。(Tài duǎnle.) |
| David: Another really common word we see is the verb to go home. |
| Echo: 回家。(Huí jiā.) |
| David: To go home. |
| Echo: 回家。(Huí jiā.) |
| David: As in the sentence, I want to go home soon. |
| Echo: 我想快点儿回家。(Wǒ xiǎng kuài diǎn er huí jiā.) |
| David: I want a little more quickly to go home. |
| Echo: 我想快点儿回家。(Wǒ xiǎng kuài diǎn er huí jiā.) |
| David: We see this |
| Echo: 快。(Kuài.) |
| David: In the next figurative speech, we want to emphasize. |
| Echo: 快死了。(Kuài sǐle.) |
| David: To be close to death. |
| Echo: 快死了。(Kuài sǐle.) |
| David: Really it means I am almost |
| Echo: 死了。(Sǐle.) |
| David: Dead. That’s a structure. So it’s not fast, it’s almost. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: And people use it at exaggerating a lot. Right? |
| Echo: 我们一般把形容词 (Wǒmen yībān bǎ xíngróngcí) adjective 放在“快”的后面。(Fàng zài “kuài” de hòumiàn.) |
| David: Yes. |
| Echo: 放在“快”和“死”的中间。比如说，课文里是:快冻死了。(Fàng zài “kuài” hé “sǐ” de zhōngjiān. Bǐrú shuō, kèwén lǐ shì: Kuài dòng sǐle.) |
| David: Right. I am almost frozen to death and they are probably not. Your Chinese hosts are not going to do this to you we hope. |
| Echo: 对，或者你可能“快热死了。”(Duì, huòzhě nǐ kěnéng “kuài rè sǐle.”) |
| David: That’s in the summer. |
| Echo: 快热死了。(Kuài rè sǐle.) |
| David: And that’s to die of heat exhaustion. |
| Echo: 快热死了。(Kuài rè sǐle.) |
| David: And you can get that at the great wall in the summer. Beijing is the city of extremes. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: So that’s our vocab section for today. Let’s move on to grammar. |
| It’s grammar time. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: The focus of our grammar lesson is talking about size, distance and height in Chinese. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: When we talk about the size of something, we use this structure. |
| Echo: 有 (Yǒu) plus number plus the measure word and then plus the adjective. |
| David: Right. We saw this in the vocab section with that sentence about the girl’s hair. |
| Echo: 她的头发有一米长。(Tā de tóufǎ yǒuyī mǐ zhǎng.) |
| David: To have one meter in length. |
| Echo: 有一米长。(Yǒuyī mǐ zhǎng.) |
| David: We see this again and again in Chinese as in the sentence, the great wall is 6,000 kilometers long. |
| Echo: 长城有六千公里长。(Chángchéng yǒu liùqiān gōnglǐ cháng.) |
| David: The great wall is 6,000 kilometers long. |
| Echo: 长城有六千公里长。(Chángchéng yǒu liùqiān gōnglǐ cháng.) |
| David: Right. We also see this structure used with the word |
| Echo: 重。(Zhòng.) |
| David: Heavy. |
| Echo: 重。(Zhòng.) |
| David: And we use this with a measurement like kilograms or pounds. |
| Echo: 比如说，我的猫有七斤重。(Bǐrú shuō, wǒ de māo yǒu qī jīn zhòng.) |
| David: My cat has 7 斤。(Jīn.) |
| Echo: 我的猫有七斤重。(Wǒ de māo yǒu qī jīn zhòng.) |
| David: And I think the official translation is cattie but a 斤 (Jīn) is about half of a kilogram. |
| Echo: 这是中国的单位。(Zhè shì zhōngguó de dānwèi.) |
| David: Right? |
| Echo: 宽。(Kuān.) |
| David: Okay let’s try another example. This time with the adjective for wide. |
| Echo: 宽。(Kuān.) |
| David: Wide. |
| Echo: 宽。(Kuān.) |
| David: This bed is 2 meters wide. |
| Echo: 这张床有两米宽。(Zhè zhāng chuáng yǒu liǎng mǐ kuān.) |
| David: This bed is 2 meters wide. |
| Echo: 这张床有两米宽。(Zhè zhāng chuáng yǒu liǎng mǐ kuān.) |
| David: Again to have 2 meters in width. |
| Echo: 有两米宽。(Yǒu liǎng mǐ kuān.) |
| David: To have 6000 kilometers in length. |
| Echo: 有六千公里长。(Yǒu liùqiān gōnglǐ cháng.) |
| David: To have 7 catties in weight. |
| Echo: 有七斤重。(Yǒu qī jīn zhòng.) |
| David: So if you want to talk about size or distance or height, use this structure. |
| Echo: 有。(Yǒu.) |
| David: Plus a number |
| Echo: Plus a measure word and then plus an adjective. |
Outro |
| David: Right and with that our lesson for today is done. Before we leave you, we want to remind you that we’ve got all of the details regarding this written up in our premium PDFs. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: If you haven’t grabbed them yet, go to chineseclass101.com and download. |
| Echo: Right. So that you can review your lesson. |
| David: Yes. Print them off, stick them in the washroom, stick them on the front desk, anywhere you are going to take a look at them and it’s really going to help the stuff stick. Thanks a lot for listening and we hope to see you on the site. |
| Echo: 谢谢，下次见。(Xièxiè, xià cì jiàn.) |
| David: Bye bye. |
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