Learn a Chinese structural particle used to describe the way an action is carried out
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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 have elementary season 1, lesson 18. |
| Echo: The Chinese Telemarketer. |
| David: Right. We are going to learn about advertising in China today. Phone advertising. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: At dinner time. So we’ve got a dialogue here. It takes place between a husband and wife and they are talking about the spate of recent calls to their house phone and since the speakers are married, they are speaking casually as always. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| David: Okay. So we are going to take you to the dialogue in a sec. Before we do that, we want to remind you |
| Echo: Comments, comments, comments. |
| David: Right. If you have questions or comments, feel free to leave a note on our site. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: And Echo will get back to you herself. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Okay so with that though, let’s go to the dialogue. |
| Echo: 好。(Hǎo.) |
| DIALOGUE |
| A: 我最讨厌电话销售了。(Wǒ zuì tǎoyàn diànhuà xiāoshòule.) |
| B: 我也是。(Wǒ yě shì.) |
| A: 昨天晚上一个人不停地给我打电话，我都快疯了。(Zuótiān wǎnshang yī ge rén bùtíng de gěi wǒ dǎ diànhuà, wǒ dōu kuài fēng le.) |
| B :他想卖什么啊？(Tā xiǎng mài shénme ā?) |
| A: 不知道。(Bù zhīdào.) |
| B: 那你怎么知道他是一个电话销售？(Nà nǐ zěnme zhīdào tā shì yī ge diànhuà xiāoshòu?) |
| Once more slowly. |
| A: 我最讨厌电话销售了。(Wǒ zuì tǎoyàn diànhuà xiāoshòule.) |
| B: 我也是。(Wǒ yě shì.) |
| A: 昨天晚上一个人不停地给我打电话，我都快疯了。(Zuótiān wǎnshang yī ge rén bùtíng de gěi wǒ dǎ diànhuà, wǒ dōu kuài fēng le.) |
| B :他想卖什么啊？(Tā xiǎng mài shénme ā?) |
| A: 不知道。(Bù zhīdào.) |
| B: 那你怎么知道他是一个电话销售？(Nà nǐ zěnme zhīdào tā shì yī ge diànhuà xiāoshòu?) |
| Once more, with English translation. |
| A: 我最讨厌电话销售了。(Wǒ zuì tǎoyàn diànhuà xiāoshòule.) |
| A: I really hate telemarketers. |
| B: 我也是。(Wǒ yě shì.) |
| B: Me too. |
| A: 昨天晚上一个人不停地给我打电话，我都快疯了。(Zuótiān wǎnshang yī ge rén bùtíng de gěi wǒ dǎ diànhuà, wǒ dōu kuài fēng le.) |
| A: Last night, this one person wouldn't stop calling my phone. I went crazy. |
| B :他想卖什么啊？(Tā xiǎng mài shénme ā?) |
| B: What was he trying to sell? |
| A: 不知道。(Bù zhīdào.) |
| A: I don't know. |
| B: 那你怎么知道他是一个电话销售？(Nà nǐ zěnme zhīdào tā shì yī ge diànhuà xiāoshòu?) |
| B: Then how did you know he was a telemarketer? |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: The answer is because he was calling it dinner time. Why do they always call at 6 o’ clock Echo? |
| Echo: 我不知道为什么。哦 No，你知道在中国他们都是12点，中午12点打电话。(Wǒ bù zhīdào wèishéme. Ó No, nǐ zhīdào zài zhōngguó tāmen dōu shì 12 diǎn, zhōngwǔ 12 diǎn dǎ diànhuà.) |
| David: It’s all noon. |
| Echo: Yeah everything is noon. |
| David: So things are switched around. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: I think its 6 because they know they are going to get you at home. |
| Echo: Yeah but in China, they will call your cell phone at like 12. |
| David: Don’t give out your cell phone number in China. |
| Echo: 对，但是有的时候 (Duì, dànshì yǒu de shíhòu) I don’t know how they can check… |
| David: Anyway, so our vocab section today is about words that are very… |
| Echo: 讨厌。(Tǎoyàn.) |
| David: Let’s get to it. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Echo: 讨厌 (tǎoyàn) |
| David: Annoying. |
| Echo: 电话销售 (diànhuàxiāoshòu) |
| David: Telemarketing. |
| Echo: 疯了 (fēng le) |
| David: To go crazy. |
| Echo: 怎么 (zěnme) |
| David: How. |
| Echo: 卖 (mài) |
| David: To sell. |
| Echo: 最 (zuì) |
| David: The most. |
| Echo: 买 (mǎi) |
| David: To buy. |
| Echo: 推销员 (tuīxiāo yuán) |
| David: Sales person. |
| Echo: 推销员 (tuīxiāo yuán) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: So our vocab is about things that are annoying. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| David: Right like that first word |
| Echo: 讨厌。(tǎoyàn.) |
| David: And literally this means like heated or hateful. |
| Echo: 没错，讨厌。比如说，我非常讨厌这种人。(Méi cuò, tǎoyàn. Bǐrú shuō, wǒ fēicháng tǎoyàn zhè zhǒng rén.) |
| David: Yeah I really hate this kind of person and it can also mean in some situations that someone likes you. |
| Echo: Yeah 比如说一个女孩子跟她喜欢的男孩子可能说“讨厌” or “你真讨厌”。 (Bǐrú shuō yīgè nǚ hái zǐ gēn tā xǐhuān de nán hái zǐ kěnéng shuō “tǎoyàn” or “nǐ zhēn tǎoyàn”.) |
| David: Yeah it’s an insult. It’s also sort of term of an endearment. So if someone says that to you, maybe things are going very well. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Anyway that’s an adjective. So we can use that with [*] |
| Echo: 他很讨厌 (Tā hěn tǎoyàn) or we can use it with 最 (Zuì) which is also our vocab today. |
| David: Yeah and that means the most. |
| Echo: Right 我最讨厌这个人。(Wǒ zuì tǎoyàn zhège rén.) |
| David: I hate this person the most. |
| Echo: Or 我最讨厌电话销售了。(Wǒ zuì tǎoyàn diànhuà xiāoshòule.) |
| David: I really hate telephone sales and we should note that pattern. We’ve got |
| Echo: 最。(Zuì.) |
| David: And then |
| Echo: 了。(Le.) |
| David: A lot of people forget that but they go together. |
| Echo: 最，了。(Zuì,le.) |
| David: I really hate telephone sales. |
| Echo: 我最讨厌电话销售了。(Wǒ zuì tǎoyàn diànhuà xiāoshòule.) |
| David: I really hate you. |
| Echo: 我最讨厌你了。(Wǒ zuì tǎoyàn nǐle.) |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: 这个就听起来有点儿像“我最喜欢你了”的意思。 (Zhège jiù tīng qǐlái yǒudiǎn er xiàng “wǒ zuì xǐhuān nǐle” de yìsi.) |
| David: Yeah it’s – well if you are a girl, you can say it. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: If you are a guy, you shouldn’t really be using 讨厌. It’s a bit effeminate but there is that word for sales there. |
| Echo: 销售。(Xiāoshòu.) |
| David: Which is really close to this other word we have |
| Echo: 推销。(Tuīxiāo.) |
| David: What’s the difference? |
| Echo: Okay 销售就是普通的卖。(Xiāoshòu jiùshì pǔtōng de mài.) |
| David: Yeah. |
| Echo: 但是推销呢更多的是有点儿他要推荐给你。(Dànshì tuīxiāo ne gèng duō de shì yǒudiǎn er tā yào tuījiàn gěi nǐ.) |
| David: Because you are pushing it so… |
| Echo: Yeah or recommend. |
| David: Yeah it’s a bit more aggressive. So… |
| Echo: 销售。(Xiāoshòu.) |
| David: And |
| Echo: 推销。(Tuīxiāo.) |
| David: They mean sort of the same thing but there is a slight difference. |
| Echo: Yes. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: Okay with that though, let’s move on to our grammar section today. It’s grammar time. Our grammar section today is about the structural particle |
| Echo: 地。(De.) |
| David: Right and you have to be careful because this has two pronunciations. |
| Echo: 地 or 地。(De or de.) |
| David: Right. You’ve probably seen it before as 地 because it’s the same character as |
| Echo: 地方。(Dìfāng.) |
| David: Right place but here it has a separate pronunciation. |
| Echo: 地。(De.) |
| David: In our dialogue, we heard it in the following sentence. |
| Echo: 不停地打电话。(Bù tíng de dǎ diànhuà.) |
| David: Without stop, they give telephone calls. |
| Echo: 不停地打电话。(Bù tíng de dǎ diànhuà.) |
| David: So this always comes before verbs and it’s modifying the verb. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: It’s telling us how the verb was done. In our dialogue without stopping. |
| Echo: 不停地打电话。(Bù tíng de dǎ diànhuà.) |
| David: It’s most common for us to see this after adjectives though. Let’s take a look at some simple examples. |
| Echo: 他慢慢地笑了。(Tā màn man de xiàole.) |
| David: He smiled slowly. |
| Echo: 小女孩儿安静地走了。(Xiǎonǚ hái'ér ānjìng de zǒule.) |
| David: The little girl went quietly. So notice that we are putting this in front of verbs and we are using it really to turn adjectives into adverbs. |
| Echo: Right 猫快快地跑了。(Māo kuài kuài dì pǎole.) |
| David: The cat quickly ran away or really the cat quickly ran. We assume it ran away. So it’s a cat but yeah so this is really simple. We are going to run into this all the time. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: One quick note. A lot of people get confused with this because a lot of the time, Chinese people will mess it up. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: 的 they are right, they are wrong 地。(De.) |
| Echo: 我的。(Wǒ de.) |
| David: Right. They will write the 的 from mine. |
| Echo: 我的。(Wǒ de.) |
| David: Or his. |
| Echo: 他的。(Tā de.) |
| David: Right. The reason for this is that this is sort of a new invention. If you go back 80, 90 years, Chinese people would use these characters interchangeably. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: So people will still make mistakes. Don’t worry about it. The important thing is you know which one you are supposed to use. Don’t get upset if you see Chinese people using this the wrong way. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
Outro |
| David: Especially online. They will just write anything. So that’s our grammar section for today. Before we leave you, we want to remind you all of the stuff, the vocab, the grammar. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: It’s in our premium PDFs. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: So if you are paying subscriber and you are helping us keep things running here, you can download these and all of this information right at your fingertips. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: With that though, from Beijing, I am David. |
| Echo: 我是 (Wǒ shì) Echo. |
| David: Thanks a lot for listening and we will see you on the site. |
| Echo: 网上见吧 (Wǎngshàng jiàn ba) Bye bye. |
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