Learn how to create sentences that include descriptions of how long it took you to do something
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome to chineseclass101. I am David. |
| Echo: 嗨，大家好，我是Echo. (Hāi, dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì Echo.) |
| David: And Echo, we have a phenomenal lesson here. |
| Echo: Especially the grammar. |
| David: Yeah the grammar point is great. This is lesson 34 in our first series at the elementary level. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: And this lesson, honestly guys, it’s absolutely fantastic. We’ve got a dialogue here which is also I think pretty good. |
| Echo: Everything is great. |
| David: Our dialogue takes place in a recording studio. |
| Echo: Right like as here. |
| David: Yeah it’s two actors who are recording the latest Hollywood hit that is being brought into China. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: And we’re going to see how they do. We are going to play the dialogue in a second. Before we do that though Echo, you had a point you wanted to make. |
| Echo: You know what guys! I really love to see your comments. |
| David: Yes and she gets really angry when you don’t leave comments. |
| Echo: Not angry! I am expecting. |
| David: Really, really angry and with that, let’s play the dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A:我爱你一辈子。 (Wǒ ài nǐ yībèizi.) |
| B:我爱你一万年。(Wǒ ài nǐ yī wàn nián.) |
| A:你是我眼中的苹果。(Nǐ shì wǒ yǎn zhōng de píngguǒ.) |
| B:什么？我是你眼中的什么？(Shénme? Wǒ shì nǐ yǎn zhōng de shénme?) |
| A:苹果，剧本就这么写的。(Píngguǒ, jùběn jiù zhème xiě de.) |
| B:谁翻译的？(Shéi fānyì de?) |
| A:我也想知道，唉，这美国大片儿。(Wǒ yě xiǎng zhīdào, ài, zhè Měiguó dàpiānr.) |
| Once more slowly. |
| A:我爱你一辈子。(Wǒ ài nǐ yībèizi.) |
| B:我爱你一万年。(Wǒ ài nǐ yī wàn nián.) |
| A:你是我眼中的苹果。(Nǐ shì wǒ yǎn zhōng de píngguǒ.) |
| B:什么？我是你眼中的什么？(Shénme? Wǒ shì nǐ yǎn zhōng de shénme?) |
| A:苹果，剧本就这么写的。(Píngguǒ, jùběn jiù zhème xiě de.) |
| B:谁翻译的？(Shéi fānyì de?) |
| A:我也想知道，唉，这美国大片儿。(Wǒ yě xiǎng zhīdào, ài, zhè Měiguó dàpiānr.) |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: Pretty good dialogue. Don’t you think? |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Right and you may have noticed, they are getting longer. They are getting a bit more difficult because this is a progressive lesson series. |
| Echo: Right and we got a very interesting sentence there. |
| David: Yeah there are a lot of interesting sentences here and two in particular, we are going to be going over later. However first we want to take you through the dialogue line by line in case there is anything you missed. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Echo, can you take us away? |
| Echo: 我爱你一辈子。(Wǒ ài nǐ yībèizi.) |
| David: I will love you in entire life time. |
| Echo: 我爱你一万年。(Wǒ ài nǐ yī wàn nián.) |
| David: I will love you for 10,000 years. |
| Echo: 你是我眼中的苹果。(Nǐ shì wǒ yǎn zhōng de píngguǒ.) |
| David: You are the Apple in my eye. |
| Echo: 什么？我是你眼中的什么？(Shénme? Wǒ shì nǐ yǎn zhōng de shénme?) |
| David: What! I am the what in your eye? |
| Echo: 苹果，剧本就这么写的。(Píngguǒ, jùběn jiù zhème xiě de.) |
| David: Apple. The script says, it’s right here. |
| Echo: 谁翻译的？(Shéi fānyì de?) |
| David: Who translated this? |
| Echo: 我也想知道，唉，这美国大片儿。(Wǒ yě xiǎng zhīdào, ài, zhè Měiguó dàpiānr.) |
| David: I also want to know. Ey! These American blockbusters. Sometimes it’s the translator’s fault. There is no saying in Chinese that is the Apple of someone’s eye. |
| Echo: Right. It’s pretty weird. |
| David: Let’s move on to the vocab for this lesson. |
| Echo: Okay. |
| David: We don’t have a grand organizing theme for you but… |
| Echo: We will talk about fruit. Let’s go. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| David: And now the vocab section. |
| Echo: 一辈子 (yībèizi) |
| David: A lifetime. |
| Echo: 一万年 (yīwànnián) |
| David: 10,000 years. |
| Echo: 眼睛 (yǎnjīng) |
| David: Eyes. |
| Echo: 眼睛 (yǎnjīng) |
| David: Glasses. |
| Echo: 苹果 (píngguǒ) |
| David: Apple. |
| Echo: 剧本 (jùběn) |
| David: Script. |
| Echo: 翻译 (fānyì) |
| David: To translate. |
| Echo: 哎 (Āi) |
| David: Ey! |
| Echo: 哎 (Āi) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: You know what strikes me listening to all of these words? |
| Echo: Uhoo… |
| David: It’s how important the tones are starting to become. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: The first thing that struck me actually was these first two words. Let’s hear them again. The first is a lifetime. |
| Echo: 一辈子。(Yībèizi.) |
| David: And the second is, 10,000 years. |
| Echo: 一万年。一辈子。一万年。 (Yī wàn nián. Yībèizi. Yī wàn nián.) |
| David: Now the first character in both of those is |
| Echo: Second tone. |
| David: It’s pronounced second tone. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Because it’s followed by a fourth tone. |
| Echo: 没错。 (Méi cuò.) |
| David: Right. Let’s hear those again. Listen to that. |
| Echo: 一辈子。一万年。 (Yībèizi. Yī wàn nián.) |
| David: Yeah. I think that’s tricky for a lot of people. People will forget about tones edit but you guys remember it. |
| Echo: Right. You just need to remember the rule. |
| David: Yeah the second thing I wanted to point out is this 10,000 years. |
| Echo:一万年。 (Yī wàn nián.) |
| David: In Chinese culture, that actually means forever. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Or for a long time. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So I am going to love you forever. |
| Echo: 我爱你一万年。(Wǒ ài nǐ yī wàn nián.) |
| David: The second tone issue we’ve got is with our third and fourth words and those sound almost the same. |
| Echo: 眼睛，眼镜。(Yǎnjīng, yǎnjìng.) |
| David: The difference between them is the second character. Pay attention to that second character. |
| Echo: 眼睛，眼镜。(Yǎnjīng, yǎnjìng.) |
| David: Right. When you are saying eyes, you are saying |
| Echo: 睛。(Jīng.) |
| David: In the first tone or the neutral tone. |
| Echo: Right 眼睛。(Yǎnjīng.) |
| David: If you are saying glasses, it’s pronounced |
| Echo: 镜。(Jìng.) |
| David: In the fourth tone. |
| Echo: 眼镜。(Yǎnjìng.) |
| David: Complicating matters is a local Beijing beer company. This is… |
| Echo: 燕京。(Yàn jīng.) |
| David: Yeah what is that? That’s fourth tone, first tone? |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So you could say, give me a bottle of Yanjing beer. |
| Echo: 给我一瓶燕京啤酒。(Gěi wǒ yī píng yàn jīng píjiǔ.) |
| David: Right. Usually context helps you figure that out. |
| Echo: Yeah let’s keep going. |
| David: Okay Echo wants to get off beer. The other words we’ve got for you is Apple |
| Echo: 苹果。(Píngguǒ.) |
| David: Obviously if you are going to talk about Apples, there is another thing you should talk about. Apple juice. |
| Echo: 苹果汁。(Píngguǒ zhī.) |
| David: I want a glass of Apple juice. |
| Echo: 我要一杯苹果汁。(Wǒ yào yībēi píngguǒ zhī.) |
| David: The word to translate we’ve already run into. |
| Echo: 翻译。(Fānyì.) |
| David: And then the last word is the sigh. |
| Echo: 哎。 (Āi.) |
| David: Ey! |
| Echo: That’s the way Chinese people sigh. |
| David: Yeah. |
| Echo: Ey! 哎，你又迟到了，怎么办呢，哎。(Āi, nǐ yòu chídàole, zěnme bàn ne, āi.) |
| David: Let’s take you to the grammar section now. It’s grammar time. Our grammar point today is all about time and specifically it’s about talking about durations. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Okay. We’ve got two sentences in the dialogue that are key. |
| Echo: 我爱你一辈子。我爱你一万年。(Wǒ ài nǐ yībèizi. Wǒ ài nǐ yī wàn nián.) |
| David: Now the interesting thing here is how we are talking about the length of time that something is happening. In English, we use four. I am going to work 4 or 8 hours. In Chinese, there are couple of different ways of doing it. It’s not as easy. |
| Echo: Right. Yeah, there are different situations. |
| David: Right. So our goal in this podcast is to teach it to you so it becomes really easy and the most common situation is actually just like English. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: We want to put the time word or the time phrase after the verb. As in the sentences, I worked for 8 hours. |
| Echo: 我工作了8个小时。(Wǒ gōngzuòle 8 gè xiǎoshí.) |
| David: I waited for half an hour. |
| Echo: 我等了半个小时。(Wǒ děngle bàn gè xiǎoshí.) |
| David: He has been here for 1 month. |
| Echo: 他来了一个月。(Tā láile yīgè yuè.) |
| David: In all of these cases, we’ve got a simple sentence because we have a simple verb. There is no object. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: However, things change when we have an object. Like for instance, to watch TV. |
| Echo: 看电视。(Kàn diànshì.) |
| David: When this happens, Chinese gets a little bit more difficult. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Because we still want to put the time phrase after the verb but we put it in front of the object. So basically we take that verb and we break it apart and we stuff the time duration into the middle. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: For instance, to watch TV |
| Echo: 看电视。(Kàn diànshì.) |
| David: I watch TV for 4 hours. |
| Echo: 我看了四个小时电视。 (Wǒ kànle sì gè xiǎoshí diànshì.) |
| David: To talk on the phone. |
| Echo: 打电话。(Dǎ diànhuà.) |
| David: I talked on the phone for 20 minutes. |
| Echo: 我打了20分钟电话。(Wǒ dǎle 20 fēnzhōng diànhuà.) |
| David: To eat. |
| Echo: 吃饭。(Chīfàn.) |
| David: He ate for half an hour. |
| Echo: 他吃了半个小时饭。(Tā chīle bàn gè xiǎoshí fàn.) |
| David: You take the verb in object, split them apart and you stuff that time duration right into the middle. |
| Echo: 对。他吃了半个小时饭。(Duì. Tā chīle bàn gè xiǎoshí fàn.) |
| David: Some of you are ahead of us and you were looking at the transcript and you are saying David and Echo, you guys are liars. |
| Echo: 我爱你一辈子。(Wǒ ài nǐ yībèizi.) |
| David: I love you forever. |
| Echo: 我爱你一万年。(Wǒ ài nǐ yī wàn nián.) |
| David: Echo, what’s going on? |
| Echo: We can see that time word is put after 我爱你一万年。(Wǒ ài nǐ yī wàn nián.) |
| David: This is an exception. When you’ve got a pronoun, the older rules don’t apply, you just, you keep them together. Let’s go through some sample sentences. I waited for you for half an hour. |
| Echo: 我等了你半个小时。(Wǒ děngle nǐ bàn gè xiǎoshí.) |
| David: She looked at you for two minutes. |
| Echo: 她看了你两分钟。(Tā kànle nǐ liǎng fēnzhōng.) |
| David: I have known him for 6 years. |
| Echo: 我认识他6年。(Wǒ rènshì tā 6 nián.) |
| David: Right. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Three general cases. First case, verbs with no object. |
| Echo: Right or simple verbs. |
| David: Right. Where does the time phrase go? |
| Echo: After the verb. |
| David: Second case, verbs with objects like to eat food. Where does the time phrase go. |
| Echo: Between the verb and the object. |
| David: Yeah it’s a messy breakup. Last but not least, when you have a verb in the object but that object is pronoun. |
| Echo: Pronoun, right. |
| David: Where do we put the time phrase then? |
| Echo: At the end after the pronoun. |
| David: Okay. In future lessons, we are going to review this. In fact our next lesson is going to be about more time funkiness. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: And we are going to make this really stick with you guys. Until then, if you are having trouble with this, one of the best things you can do is become a premium subscriber and get your hands on those transcripts. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: We have extensive grammar write ups that explain all of this stuff. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
Outro |
| David: Okay. So there are a lot of advantages of being a premium subscriber. That being said, we are at the end of our podcast. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: So Echo, you have a special message for people. |
| Echo: From Beijing, I am Echo. |
| David: I am David. Thanks a lot for listening guys. We will see you on the site. |
| Echo: Yeah. 网上见。(Wǎngshàng jiàn.) |
| David: Bye. |
Comments
HideHave you seen any Hollywood films dubbed into Chinese? What are your favorites?
Hello samia,
Thank you for your comment. Yes that's correct! 👍
If you have any questions, please let us know.
Ngai
Team ChineseClass101.com
Is this sentence right? 我看了半 个 小时书
Hello Masaya Miura,
Thank you for your comment. This lesson appears in several series. It is lesson 34 in both the "Level 4 Chinese" and "Elementary Season 1" series, and it's lesson 3 in the "An Intermediate Chinese Lesson Review" series.
If you have any questions, please let us know.
Ngai
Team ChineseClass101.com
This lesson is No.34, according to the recording. Dashboard shows this lesson is No.3. What is the relationship between the two numbers? I am confused.
Masaya Miura
Hello EIICHI GENDA,
Thank you for your comment. Are you referring to this line "You are the apple of my eye"?
Instead of translating it literally, this line can be translated to 你是我最珍爱的人。(Nǐ shì wǒ zuì zhēn'ài de rén.) You are the person I cherish the most.
If you have any questions, please let us know.
Ngai
Team ChineseClass101.com
I did not understand of this misinterpretation. What was the original sentence and what was the right translation?
Hello robert groulx,
Thank you for your comment, we hope you enjoyed the lesson!
If you have any questions, please let us know.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
thanks for the lesson
my favoerite words are 对。他吃了半个小时饭
robert
Hello Chuka Nwobodo,
Thank you for your comment. In the audio, Echo did say 剧本 (jùběn) script, but she said it with the r-colouring, so it sounds like jùběnr, it's very common for people from the north.
As always, let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
There is a conflict between the word for 'script' that appears in the Vocabulary section and the word that Echo dictates.
Hi, 杰米，
You are right.
I have been waiting for him for half an hour. = 我等了他半个小时了
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
我等了他半个小时 is "I waited for him for half an hour."
If I wanted to say "I have been waiting for him for half an hour," would I say, "我等了他半个小时了"
Thanks
Hi, Donatella,
我吃了一个小时饭。
我吃饭吃了一个小时。
我吃了一个小时的饭。
我看了三个小时电视。
我看电视看了三个小时。
我看了三个小时的电视。
These three usages are all correct.
The second way seem to be easier but it is verbose to repeat the verb, so we use the first or the third more than the second one.:smile:
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
hello
thank you very much for this interesting lesson.
I have a question
wo chi le yi ge xiaoshi fan , is correct if I say
wo chi fan chi le yi ge xiaoshi or
wo chi le yi ge xiaoshi de fan
wo kan le san ge xiaoshi dianshi
wo kan dianshi kan le san ge xiaoshi
wo kan le san ge xiaoshi de dianshi
If it is correct, the second way is easier because after repeating the verb you add the time , the time stays always at the and of the sentence
Thank you very much
I hope to learn how to use chinese character with this computer
Donatella
Hi Aaron,
In this sentence, 会+爱 equals to “will love" in English.
Chloe
Team ChineseClass101.com
I'd like clarification on the sentence below. Why is the "de" in "hui4 de" being dropped. I thought without the "de", "hui4" became "know" instead of "will".
你会爱我一辈子吗？
Nǐ huì ài wǒ yíbèizi ma?
Aaron
Hi Agne,
Thank you for pointing out the issue! We have fixed it:smile:
Chloe
Team ChineseClass101.com
I think there is mistake in the pdf: 他等了三个月 Tā děng le sān ge yuè ("He waited for three days"). Isnt it supposed to be "three months".
Hi Herman,
我们一般说“中国电视剧”。“它们正在播出”。“虽然我对中文对话半懂不懂，可是我勉强能懂它的故事。如果我写错了，请老师改正”。
Echo
Team ChineseClass101.com
我喜欢看中国电视片。现在我看的是“雪豹” 和“我家有喜喜“两部片儿它们真在播出。虽然我半懂中文对话，可是我勉强和鼓励自己能够懂的它的故事。请老师改正若果我写错了