Learn different ways to talk about making money and passing time
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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 we are here with lesson #10 in series 1 at the elementary level. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: This week is the Citizen Kane of Chinese teaching podcast. It’s very good. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: It’s Orson Welles good. The dialogue is pretty casual. It’s between friends. |
| Echo: Yeah friends. |
| David: Or ex-friends. |
| Echo: You call them friends, okay. |
| David: It’s interesting. |
| Echo: Yeah and the atmosphere is interesting. |
| David: The atmosphere is interesting. Echo, how do you say interesting again? |
| Echo: 有意思。(Yǒuyìsi.) |
| David: Before we go to the dialogue, we want to remind you, if you haven’t signed up for your free life time account, it takes 7 seconds. |
| Echo: 7秒钟。(7 Miǎo zhōng.) |
| David: Now though, let’s get to the dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A:我等了你三年了。(Wǒ děng le nǐ sān nián le.) |
| B:可你三年都没有联系过我。你在忙什么？(Kě nǐ sān nián dōu méiyǒu liánxì guò wǒ. Nǐ zài máng shénme?) |
| A:挣钱。还有几个女朋友。(Zhèngqián. Hái yǒu jǐ ge nǚpéngyou.) |
| B:那你等我干什么？(Nà nǐ děng wǒ gàn shénme?) |
| A:等你还我的二百块钱呀！(Děng nǐ huán wǒ de èrbǎi kuài qián ya!) |
| Once more slowly. |
| A:我等了你三年了。(Wǒ děng le nǐ sān nián le.) |
| B:可你三年都没有联系过我。你在忙什么？(Kě nǐ sān nián dōu méiyǒu liánxì guò wǒ. Nǐ zài máng shénme?) |
| A:挣钱。还有几个女朋友。(Zhèngqián. Hái yǒu jǐ ge nǚpéngyou.) |
| B:那你等我干什么？(Nà nǐ děng wǒ gàn shénme?) |
| A:等你还我的二百块钱呀！(Děng nǐ huán wǒ de èrbǎi kuài qián ya!) |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: We should call this lesson the heartbreaker. |
| Echo: No… |
| David: Umm? |
| Echo: No I think this is revenge. |
| David: Revenge? It’s not revenge. Like I want just money back. |
| Echo: Yeah. The girl took this guy’s money for 3 years. |
| David: You are citing with the man here. This is interesting. |
| Echo: 我等了你三年了。(Wǒ děng le nǐ sān nián le.) |
| David: I’ve been waiting for you for three years. |
| Echo: 可你三年都没有联系过我。(Kě nǐ sān nián dōu méiyǒu liánxì guò wǒ.) |
| David: But you haven’t contacted me in three years. |
| Echo: 你在忙什么？(Nǐ zài máng shénme?) |
| David: What have you been busy with? |
| Echo: 挣钱。还有几个女朋友。(Zhèngqián. Hái yǒu jǐ ge nǚpéngyou.) |
| David: Making money and then there were a couple of girlfriends. |
| Echo: 那你等我干什么？(Nà nǐ děng wǒ gàn shénme?) |
| David: Then what have you been doing waiting for me? |
| Echo: 等你还我的二百块钱呀！(Děng nǐ huán wǒ de èrbǎi kuài qián ya!) |
| David: Waiting for you to give back my 200 bucks. |
| Echo: I love the line. |
| David: Hearts are being broken. |
| Echo: Well she borrowed ¥200 from the guy and didn’t pay back. |
| David: It’s ¥200. |
| Echo: For three years. |
| David: It’s a small price to pay for passion. |
| Echo: But 3 years. |
| David: This is love. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Echo: 等(děng) |
| David: To wait. |
| Echo: 联系 (liánxì) |
| David: To contact. |
| Echo: 挣钱 (zhèngqián) |
| David: To make money. |
| Echo: 还 (huán) |
| David: To return. |
| Echo: 干什么 (gàn shénme) |
| David: To do what. |
| Echo: 年 (nián) |
| David: Year. |
| Echo: 月 (yuè) |
| David: Month. |
| Echo: 天 (tiān) |
| David: Day. |
| Echo: 小时 (xiǎoshí) |
| David: Hour. |
| Echo: 分钟 (fēnzhōng) |
| David: Minute. |
| Echo: 秒 (miǎo) |
| David: Second. |
| Echo: 秒 (miǎo) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: With the vocab list like this, we’ve got to be talking about time. |
| Echo: 对。 (Duì.) |
| David: Right. Before we get to the time words though, a couple of interesting things we should talk about. The first is the word for making money. |
| Echo: 挣钱。(Zhèng qián.) |
| David: There are couple of other ways of saying that too. |
| Echo: Like 赚钱。(Zhuànqián.) |
| David: Can you give us a sample sentence? |
| Echo: 他挣了很多钱。(Tā zhēngle hěnduō qián.) |
| David: He made a lot of money. |
| Echo: 他挣了很多钱。(Tā zhēngle hěnduō qián.) |
| David: The next word we want to pull out for you is the word to give back. |
| Echo: 还。(Hái.) |
| David: If you borrow money |
| Echo: 借钱。(Jiè qián.) |
| David: You will need to give back money. |
| Echo: 还钱。(Hái qián.) |
| David: He returned my money. |
| Echo: 他换了我的钱。(Tā huànle wǒ de qián.) |
| David: If you borrow a book. |
| Echo: 借书。(Jiè shū.) |
| David: You will need to return the book. |
| Echo: 还书。(Hái shū.) |
| David: I returned the library book. |
| Echo: 我还了图书馆的书。(Wǒ háile túshū guǎn de shū.) |
| David: The last thing we want to talk about before we get on to time is this three-character expression. |
| Echo: 干什么？ (Gànshénme?) |
| David: We run into it in the dialogue in this sentence. |
| Echo: 那你等我干什么？(Nà nǐ děng wǒ gànshénme?) |
| David: And here it means why. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Like why are you waiting for me? |
| Echo: 干什么，等我干什么？(Gànshénme, děng wǒ gànshénme?) |
| David: This is a really casual usage. It’s close to slang and you are going to run into it more in Northern China. So you might go somewhere and someone says, hey what are you doing? |
| Echo: 你在干什么？(Nǐ zài gànshénme?) |
| David: The more formal way of saying the same thing is |
| Echo: 你在做什么？(Nǐ zài zuò shénme?) |
| David: So keep an eye out for this. |
| Echo: 你在干什么？你在做什么？(Nǐ zài gànshénme? Nǐ zài zuò shénme?) |
| David: Now it’s time for the second part of our vocab section where we are going to talk about time. We’ve got the word for year. |
| Echo: 年。(Nián.) |
| David: Month. |
| Echo: 月。(Yuè.) |
| David: Day |
| Echo: 天。(Tiān.) |
| David: Hour |
| Echo: 小时。(Xiǎoshí.) |
| David: Minute |
| Echo: 分钟。(Fēnzhōng.) |
| David: Second |
| Echo: 秒。(Miǎo.) |
| David: I get that one wrong all the time. It’s third tone. |
| Echo: 秒。(Miǎo.) |
| David: You will notice that sometimes, we’ve got a measure word tucked in there and sometimes not when we are talking about length of time. So for three years, you say |
| Echo: 三年。(Sān nián.) |
| David: For 3 months, you say |
| Echo: 三个月。(Sān gè yuè.) |
| David: Chinese just works this way. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| David: We are going to go over them again and we are going to tell you where you can and can’t use the measure word when you are talking about time. Year, it’s not there. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Three years. |
| Echo: 三年。(Sān nián.) |
| David: I’ve waited for you for 3 years. |
| Echo: 我等了你三年。(Wǒ děngle nǐ sān nián.) |
| David: Months |
| Echo: 月。(Yuè.) |
| David: Three months |
| Echo: 三个月。(Sān gè yuè.) |
| David: I’ve waited for you for 3 months. |
| Echo: 我等了你三个月。(Wǒ děngle nǐ sān gè yuè.) |
| David: So you’ve got to have that measure word tucked in there with the word month. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Day. We are back to not having it. |
| Echo: 天。(Tiān.) |
| David: Three days. |
| Echo: 三天。(Sān tiān.) |
| David: I’ve waited for you for 3 days. |
| Echo: 我等了三天。(Wǒ děngle sān tiān.) |
| David: Echo, what’s the state with hour? |
| Echo: 小时。(Xiǎoshí.) |
| David: Is there a 个 (Gè) or is there not a 个。(Gè.) |
| Echo: 你猜猜。(Nǐ cāi cāi.) |
| David: I think there is. |
| Echo: 猜对了。(Cāi duìle.) |
| David: I waited for you for 3 hours. |
| Echo: 我等了你三个小时。(Wǒ děngle nǐ sān gè xiǎoshí.) |
| David: Right. And then minutes and seconds, there is no 个(Gè), no measure word there. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: Okay. So the ones that have a measure word again are month. |
| Echo: 月。(Yuè.) |
| David: And hour |
| Echo: 小时。(Xiǎoshí.) |
| David: The ones that don’t are year |
| Echo: 年。(Nián.) |
| David: Day |
| Echo: 天。(Tiān.) |
| David: Minute |
| Echo: 分钟。(Fēnzhōng.) |
| David: And second |
| Echo: 秒。(Miǎo.) |
| David: And with that, we are done with the vocab section. |
| Echo: Right. |
| David: Let’s get on to grammar. |
| It’s grammar time. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: In our last lesson, we learned where to put durations of time. |
| Echo: 他等了三年。(Tā děngle sān nián.) |
| David: I waited for 3 years. |
| Echo: 他打了半个小时电话。(Tā dǎle bàn gè xiǎoshí diànhuà.) |
| David: He was on the phone for half an hour. |
| Echo: 我爱你一辈子。(Wǒ ài nǐ yībèizi.) |
| David: I will love you an entire life time. We didn’t have negative sentences. We pushed them off until this lesson. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: So in this lesson, we are going to go over the simple rules for how you handle things in the negative. |
| Echo: 很简单。(Hěn jiǎndān.) |
| David: What do we do? |
| Echo: You put the time word in front of the verb. |
| David: Right. In negative sentences, it jumps from after the verb to before the verb but after the subject. Let’s have some simple examples. |
| Echo: 你三年没有联系过我。(Nǐ sān nián méiyǒu liánxìguò wǒ.) |
| David: You haven’t contacted me in 3 years. |
| Echo: 你三年没有联系过我。(Nǐ sān nián méiyǒu liánxìguò wǒ.) |
| David: Our time phrase is put in front of the verb. |
| Echo: 你三年没有联系过我。(Nǐ sān nián méiyǒu liánxìguò wǒ.) |
| David: What if that was three days? |
| Echo: 三天，你三天没有联系过我。(Sān tiān, nǐ sān tiān méiyǒu liánxìguò wǒ.) |
| David: What if it was three hours? |
| Echo: 三个小时，你三个小时没有联系过我。(Sān gè xiǎoshí, nǐ sān gè xiǎoshí méiyǒu liánxìguò wǒ.) |
| David: Right. This is tricky for some people because the word order is different than it is in English. And Echo, you have some more sample sentences for us right? |
| Echo: 他半个月没有回家。(Tā bàn gè yuè méiyǒu huí jiā.) |
| David: He hasn’t returned home in half a month. |
| Echo: 我一天没有吃饭。(Wǒ yītiān méiyǒu chīfàn.) |
Outro |
| David: I haven’t eaten for a single day. And that’s our grammar section for today. Echo, before we go, there is something you wanted to say. |
| Echo: 大家别忘了我们的PDF.(Dàjiā bié wàngle wǒmen de PDF.) |
| David: If you get our PDF you are going to get all of this grammar explanation in written form. |
| Echo: Right you can always review. |
| David: And that being said, we are at the end of the podcast. |
| Echo: Okay from Beijing, I am Echo. |
| David: I am David. Thank you for listening guys and we hope to see you on the site. |
| Echo: 网上见。(Wǎngshàng jiàn.) |
| David: Take care guys. |
| Echo: Bye bye. |
| David: Bye. |
Comments
HideAt risk of launching another gender war, we want to know what you guys would do in this situation, grant amnesty or insist on repayment?
Hi Nicola!
谢谢你的留言！(Xièxiè nǐ de liúyán! "Thank you for your message!") 😊
It seems like you wanted to say "lesson" in Chinese. Instead of "教训" (jiàoxùn), which means "to teach someone a lesson" or "to reprimand," you should use "课程" (kèchéng) or "课" (kè) for "lesson." So you could say: 谢谢你的课程 (Xièxiè nǐ de kèchéng) or 谢谢你的课 (Xièxiè nǐ de kè).
If you have any questions, please let us know.
谢谢! (Xièxiè! "Thank you!")
Team ChineseClass101.com
你好，
谢谢你的教训
I do grant amnesty for my best friends.
Nicola
你好 robert groulx,
You are very welcome. 😇
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
Good luck with your language studies.
Kind regards,
雷文特
Team ChineseClass101.com
thanks for the lesson
my favorite phrase is 很简单。
robert
Hello, Donatella,
Thank you for your posting.
Your explanation for the difference of "了……" and "了……了" is correct.
But in the sentence, 我等了你三年了, mean “I have waited for you for three until now”.
Whether "I am waiting now or now" depends on whether the reason of "waiting for you" still exists or not.
In the dialogue, he hasn't given the money back to "me", so the sentence indicates that "I" am still waiting.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hello, how are you ?
thank you very much for your lessons , are very useful.
I have a question
the man in the dialog says: wo deng le ni san nian le
to me looks like he is still waiting ..... because the double "le" in the sentence.....
When I say : wo xue le san nian means I studied for three years and now I don't study anymore
but if I say: wo xue le san nian le means I 'm still studying .
It is correct ?
If it is correct like that, why the man says wo deng le ni san nian le instead of wo deng le ni san nian ? He is still waiting ?
Sorry for my english and also because I did not understand yet how to write in chinese character with this computer.
Thank you very much
Donatella
Hi, Jay,
Thank you for asking.
过 is used for perfect tense.
In this case, if you add 过, the translation is “You haven't been kept in touch with me for three years.”
And if there is no 过, it is "You didn't contact me this three years."
This two sentences in Chinese shows the same meaning, so you can add it or not add it.
If you have any further question, please let us know.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
老师们好，
I have a question about the examples used in the podcast. Echo used several examples to clarify the grammar point, including these sentences: 你三年都沒有聯繫過我 and 你三個小時都沒有聯繫我。 The grammar point is very useful and well explained, but my question is when to add 過。 In the first sentence it was added, but omitted in the second sentence. I am assuming because the time period is much longer? Could you clarify when to add 過 and not to add it? Thanks guys!
I love the lessons! Keep up the good work David and Echo!
Jay
@麥向敢,
你的句子都是对的，非常好！如果用“联系过”，一般是指时间比较长的情况，比如“X个月或者X年”。因为几个小时和几天时间比较短，所以我们不用“过”。
--Echo
大家好
那我可以说“给我五分钟” for saying give me five minutes.
对话里你们说“联系过”，但你给我们举写些例子你们说“联系”。比如说，你三个小时没联系我，你三天没联系我。为什么不说联系过？对话句子说“可你三年都没有联系过我”。我不懂。你可能解释吧。多谢。also, how would you say " can I steal a few minutes from you"? 是这样吗，我可以借你几分钟，好吗？写对了吗？
@蓝大卫，
Here the second 了 is used to confirm/ emphasize sth have already happened.
Yes, you can say 还有一些女朋友. When people use 几个, they mean "several", but not as many as "一些".
Characters like 还 or 了, since they are more than one pronunciation, you can call them polyphone--多音字(duo1yin1zi4).
--Echo
还 huán meaning ¨return", can also be, pronounced hái ,meaning "also”.
I caught this while I was trying to add 还 to my flashcards in PlecoDict.
Both usages were used in today's dialog! Very interesting!
还有几个女朋友。Hái yǒu jǐ ge nǚpéngyou
等你还我的二百块钱呀！děng nǐ huán wǒ de èrbǎi kuài yā!
What is the term for this? Computer types would call it "overloading", but
I rather doubt the linguists use this term. This same behavior can take place with 了 （le or liǎo).
the numbering system in this series is becoming even more confusing. This Elementary #35 is called #10 on the audio blog, but #35 on the pdf file. David says it would be #10 in the 2nd 25-lesson set. What is that? Is there a first 25-lesson set??
Wouldn't it be good to have the audio and pdf files agree in number?
The lesson says 还有几个女朋友. （then there were a couple of girlfriends.)
Would it be correct Chinese to say 还有一些女朋友?
(then there were *some* girlfriends.)
It seems to me that the lesson's translation is more conveying the idea of having some is "几个”。 Precisely, "a couple" in this context would be a count of two, but I get the sense that the speaker merely means more than one rather than being exact with this numbers. 对吗？
What's the difference between：我等了你三年了。 （The sentence in the lesson) and 我等了你三年。? Does the final 了make the sentence more emphatic?
Hi Bill, they're still set for release shortly. This would be lesson ten in the second twenty-five lesson set.
Elementary lesson 10? Where are the rest (#8-24) that were going to be backdated?