Learn the Chinese adverb that means "always"
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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 we are back with elementary season 1, Lesson 16. |
| Echo: Winter at the Summer Palace. |
| David: Right. In our last lesson, we took you to the great wall. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: In January and in this lesson, we are going to the summer palace. |
| Echo: Yes in the winter as well. |
| David: It’s going to be great. So we’ve got a conversation obviously that takes place at the summer palace and it’s between two friends. So they are speaking casually as always. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| David: So we are going to take you to the dialogue. Before we do, we want to remind you, in the PDFs that we’ve got for every lesson, we have a culture note and a grammar write up. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| David: So if you are interested in learning more about Chinese grammar or not learning grammar but you want to learn more about things like the summer palace, check out those PDFs. Okay with that, let’s go to the dialogue. |
| Echo: 好。(Hǎo.) |
| DIALOGUE |
| A:颐和园真美。(Yíhéyuán zhēnměi.) |
| B:没错儿，但是现在这里很冷。(Méicuò ér, dànshì xiànzài zhèli hěn lěng.) |
| A:你怎么总是觉得冷啊？来，喝点儿热茶。(Nǐ zěnme zǒngshì juéde Lěng ā? Lái, hē diǎnr rè chá.) |
| B:我们夏天再来不行吗？(Wǒmen xiàtiān zài lái bù xíng ma?) |
| A:那时候人太多了。(Nà shíhou rén tài duō le.) |
| Once more slowly. |
| A:颐和园真美。(Yíhéyuán zhēnměi.) |
| B:没错儿，但是现在这里很冷。(Méicuò ér, dànshì xiànzài zhèli hěn lěng.) |
| A:你怎么总是觉得冷啊？来，喝点儿热茶。(Nǐ zěnme zǒngshì juéde Lěng ā? Lái, hē diǎnr rè chá.) |
| B:我们夏天再来不行吗？(Wǒmen xiàtiān zài lái bù xíng ma?) |
| A:那时候人太多了。(Nà shíhou rén tài duō le.) |
| Once more, with English translation. |
| A:颐和园真美。(Yíhéyuán zhēnměi.) |
| A:The Summer Palace is really beautiful. |
| B:没错儿，但是现在这里很冷。(Méicuò ér, dànshì xiànzài zhèli hěn lěng.) |
| B:Absolutely, but it's really cold now. |
| A:你怎么总是觉得冷啊？来，喝点儿热茶。(Nǐ zěnme zǒngshì juéde Lěng ā? Lái, hē diǎnr rè chá.) |
| A:Why do you always think it's cold. Here, drink some tea. |
| B:我们夏天再来不行吗？(Wǒmen xiàtiān zài lái bù xíng ma?) |
| B:Can't we come back in the summer? |
| A:那时候人太多了。(Nà shíhou rén tài duō le.) |
| A:There's too many people then. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: That’s a line you will hear everywhere in Beijing. And people will tell you |
| Echo: 中国人太多了。(Zhōngguó rén tài duōle.) |
| David: Right but the summer palace Echo, if people haven’t heard of this, what is it? |
| Echo: 这是中国的一个，我们叫皇家园林。(Zhè shì zhōngguó de yīgè, wǒmen jiào huángjiā yuánlín.) |
| David: So it’s an old royal palace basically. It’s the kind of the summer residence of the emperor. It’s located on the northwest side of Beijing and it covers almost three square kilometers. It’s an amazing place to visit. If you come, make sure you check it out. |
| Echo: 对，夏天去非常好，有山还有湖。(Duì, xiàtiān qù fēicháng hǎo, yǒu shān hái yǒu hú.) |
| David: Okay. That being said, let’s get on to the vocab for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Echo: 颐和园 (Yíhéyuán) |
| David: The summer palace. |
| Echo: 美 (měi) |
| David: Beautiful. |
| Echo: 现在 (xiànzài) |
| David: Now. |
| Echo: 没错 (Méi cuò) |
| David: That’s right. |
| Echo: 总是 (zǒngshì) |
| David: Always |
| Echo: 夏天 (xiàtiān) |
| David: Summer. |
| Echo: 冬天 (dōngtiān) |
| David: Winter. |
| Echo: 那时候 (nà shíhou) |
| David: At that time. |
| Echo: 那时候 (nà shíhou) |
| David: So there is a lot of stuff in this lesson. We’ve got a bunch to talk about but first we want to highlight two phrases that we included. The first is a way of saying that’s right. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Or literally that’s not wrong. |
| Echo: 没错儿。(Méi cuò ér.) |
| David: If you listen carefully, you can hear the 儿化音 (Ér huà yīn) sound at the end of that word. |
| Echo: 错儿。(Cuò ér) |
| David: It’s a really soft 儿。(Er.) |
| Echo: 错儿。(Cuò ér.) |
| David: Again, that’s right. |
| Echo: 没错儿。(méicuò.) |
| David: Don’t forget to include that. It’s going to make you sound a lot more fluent. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Okay our second phrase was, at that time. |
| Echo: 那时候。(nà shíhou.) |
| David: Again |
| Echo: 那时候。(nà shíhou.) |
| David: And you are probably noticing the difference in pronunciation between |
| Echo: 那。(Nà.) |
| David: And |
| Echo: 那。(Nà.) |
| David: What’s going on Echo? |
| Echo: They are the same. |
| David: Right. We are just pronouncing 那(Nà) as 那(Nà) here. Its standard, it’s custom. |
| Echo: Yeah 那(Nà) is a little bit more colloquial than 那.(Nà.) |
| David: Yeah. |
| Echo: But they are the same. |
| David: Yeah. So use this too when you say this phrase. It’s going to make you sound more fluent. |
| Echo: Yeah. So you can either say 那时候 or 那时候。(nà shíhou or nà shíhou.) |
| David: Right but we recommend |
| Echo: 那时候。(nà shíhou.) |
| David: Right. It can make you sound better. The rest of the language here is actually relatively straightforward. The most difficult word is probably summer palace. |
| Echo: 颐和园。(Yíhéyuán.) |
| David: Summer palace. |
| Echo: 颐和园。(Yíhéyuán.) |
| David: And you are not really going to hear that outside Beijing. |
| Echo: 我觉得颐和园还是比较有名的。(Wǒ juédé yíhéyuán háishì bǐjiào yǒumíng de.) |
| David: It is an international landmark. The other words we wanted to highlight are summer. |
| Echo: 夏天。(Xiàtiān.) |
| David: And winter |
| Echo: 冬天。(Dōngtiān.) |
| David: And you can be forgiven for thinking that Beijing is just summer and winter. |
| Echo: 差不多了。(Chàbùduōle.) |
| David: The autumns and spring are very short. So you can say things like Beijing summers are hot. |
| Echo: 北京的夏天的很热。(Běijīng de xiàtiān de hěn rè.) |
| David: Beijing summers are hot. |
| Echo: 北京的夏天的很热。(Běijīng de xiàtiān de hěn rè.) |
| David: How about Beijing winters are cold. |
| Echo: 北京的冬天很冷。(Běijīng de dōngtiān hěn lěng.) |
| David: Beijing winters are cold. |
| Echo: 北京的冬天很冷。(Běijīng de dōngtiān hěn lěng.) |
| David: So some new useful vocab there. Let’s get on to our grammar point for today. |
| It’s grammar time. |
| The focus of today’s grammar point is on the adverb |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Echo: 总是。(zǒngshì.) |
| David: Always. |
| Echo: 总是。(zǒngshì.) |
| David: Since this is an adverb, we can put it in front of both verbs and adjectives. For instance |
| Echo: 总是漂亮。(Zǒng shì piàoliang.) |
| David: Always pretty. |
| Echo: 总是听不懂。(Zǒng shì tīng bù dǒng.) |
| David: Always not to understand. So those are examples of |
| Echo: 总是。(Zǒng shì.) |
| David: Being used with an adjective and a verb. Very frequently though, when we are using it with an adjective, we are going to put another adverb in between. For instance, it’s always very hot. |
| Echo: 总是很热。(Zǒng shì hěn rè.) |
| David: It’s always extremely pretty. |
| Echo: 总是非常漂亮。(Zǒng shì fēicháng piàoliang.) |
| David: It’s always really cold. |
| Echo: 总是很冷。(Zǒng shì hěn lěng.) |
| David: Let’s practice this with some sample sentences. |
| Echo: 那个女孩儿总是很漂亮。(Nàgè nǚhái ér zǒng shì hěn piàoliang.) |
| David: That girl is always very pretty. |
| Echo: 那个女孩儿总是很漂亮。(Nàgè nǚhái ér zǒng shì hěn piàoliang.) |
| David: Beautiful as an adjective and so we’ve got |
| Echo: 很。(Hěn.) |
| David: In between |
| Echo: 总是。(Zǒng shì.) |
| David: And the adjective. |
| Echo: 漂亮。(Piàoliang.) |
| David: Yeah. Let’s have another example with a verb. |
| Echo: 他总是迟到。(Tā zǒng shì chídào.) |
| David: He is always late. |
| Echo: 他总是迟到。(Tā zǒng shì chídào.) |
| David: How about this one? |
| Echo: 为什么你总是让我做饭。(Wèishéme nǐ zǒng shì ràng wǒ zuò fàn.) |
| David: Why do you always make me make food? |
| Echo: 为什么你总是让我做饭。(Wèishéme nǐ zǒng shì ràng wǒ zuò fàn.) |
| David: Why do you always make me prepare dinner and our verb there is |
| Echo: 让。(Ràng.) |
| David: Right. So a really quick grammar point today about |
| Echo: 总是。(Zǒng shì.) |
| David: Remember, this is an adverb and so we can put it in front of either verbs or adjectives. If we put it in front of a verb, that’s all we need to do. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: For example |
| Echo: 他总是迟到。(Tā zǒng shì chídào.) |
| David: If you want to put it in front of an adjective though, it’s very common to put another adverb in between. |
| Echo: 那个女孩总是很漂亮。(Nàgè nǚhái zǒng shì hěn piàoliang.) |
Outro |
| David: This is the subtle point but it’s going to make your Chinese sound a lot more native. So that just about does it for today. Before we go, we want to remind you. If you like chineseclass101.com and you like Facebook, you have a treat for you. |
| Echo: Yeah you can check out our Facebook page. |
| David: Yes you can combine both of those pleasures into one. Just search for chineseclass101.com and you will pull up our fan page. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Okay and that’s our lesson for today. As always, thank you for listening. From Beijing, I am David. |
| Echo: 我是 (Wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: And we will see you on the site. |
| Echo: 网上见 (Wǎngshàng jiàn) Bye bye. |
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