Learn how to talk about something you have done before and are planning on starting again in the future
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome to chineseclass101.com. I am David. |
| Echo: Hi, 大家好, 我是Echo。(Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì Echo.) |
| David: And we are here with lower beginner, season 1, Lesson 15. |
| Echo: Are You Too Busy for Love in China? |
| David: Right. Working too hard, too much studying, no time for love or dating. |
| Echo: 唔, 那不好。(Wú, nà bù hǎo.) |
| David: Yeah. So our dialogue is between two friends. |
| Echo: Yeah and one is inviting another one for a date. |
| David: They are still trying to go out on a date. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Right. Previous lessons, we’ve tried and it hasn’t worked out. So we are still trying. As before, this is casual Mandarin. Let’s listen. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A:你什么时候有空? (Nǐ shénme shíhòu yǒu kòng?) |
| B: 有事吗？ (Yǒushì ma?) |
| A:我想请你吃晚饭。(Wǒ xiǎng qǐng nǐ chī wǎnfàn.) |
| B: 不好意思，我最近特别忙。(Bùhǎoyìsi, wǒ zuìjìn tèbié máng.) |
| A:能不能抽点儿时间给我呢。(Néng bùnéng chōu diǎnr shíjiān gěi wǒne.) |
| B: 真不好意思，改天再说吧。(Zhēn bùhǎoyìsi, gǎitiān zàishuō ba.) |
| David: Once more, a bit slower. |
| A:你什么时候有空? (Nǐ shénme shíhòu yǒu kòng?) |
| B: 有事吗？ (Yǒushì ma?) |
| A:我想请你吃晚饭。(Wǒ xiǎng qǐng nǐ chī wǎnfàn.) |
| B: 不好意思，我最近特别忙。(Bùhǎoyìsi, wǒ zuìjìn tèbié máng.) |
| A:能不能抽点儿时间给我呢。(Néng bùnéng chōu diǎnr shíjiān gěi wǒne.) |
| B: 真不好意思，改天再说吧。(Zhēn bùhǎoyìsi, gǎitiān zàishuō ba.) |
| David: And now with an English translation. |
| Echo: 你什么时候有空? (Nǐ shénme shíhòu yǒu kòng?) |
| David: When are you free? |
| Echo: 有事吗？ (Yǒushì ma?) |
| David: What’s wrong? |
| Echo: 我想请你吃晚饭。(Wǒ xiǎng qǐng nǐ chī wǎnfàn.) |
| David: I want to invite you to dinner. |
| Echo:不好意思，我最近特别忙。(Bùhǎoyìsi, wǒ zuìjìn tèbié máng.) |
| David: I am sorry. Lately I’ve been really busy. |
| Echo:能不能抽点儿时间给我呢。(Néng bùnéng chōu diǎnr shíjiān gěi wǒne.) |
| David: Can’t you squeeze out a little time for me? |
| Echo:真不好意思，改天再说吧。(Zhēn bùhǎoyìsi, gǎitiān zàishuō ba.) |
| David: I am really sorry. Let’s talk about it some other time. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: Kind of sad, but not cruel. |
| Echo: Well I think this guy has no hope. |
| David: Doesn’t look good. |
| Echo: Yeah as long as… |
| David: If you don’t even want to talk about it, that we will talk about it some other time. In Chinese, that means we are not going to talk about it at all. |
| Echo: Yeah it’s like 哪天 (Nǎ tiān) or it’s like 改天. (Gǎitiān.) It’s no way. |
| David: Yes 改天 (Gǎitiān) literally means another day. Really it means never. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: We are never going to talk about this. Anyway, we do have a lot of really useful vocab. So we are going to get to that now. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Echo: 有空。(Yǒu kòng.) |
| David: To have free time. |
| Echo: 有空,有空,有事。 (Yǒu kòng, yǒu kòng, yǒushì.) |
| David: To have something. |
| Echo: 有事, 有事,不好意思。 (Yǒushì, yǒushì, bù hǎoyìsi.) |
| David: I am sorry. |
| Echo: 不好意思,不好意思,特别。 (Bù hǎoyìsi, bù hǎoyìsi, tèbié.) |
| David: Especially. |
| Echo: 特别,特别,忙。(Tèbié, tèbié, máng.) |
| David: Busy. |
| Echo: 忙, 忙, 抽时间。 (Máng, máng, chōu shíjiān.) |
| David: To find time. |
| Echo: 抽时间,抽时间,改天。 (Chōu shíjiān, chōu shíjiān, gǎitiān.) |
| David: To change days. |
| Echo: 改天, 改天, 改天再说。(Gǎitiān, gǎitiān, gǎitiān zàishuō.) |
| David: Let’s talk about it later. |
| Echo: 改天再说,改天再说。 (Gǎitiān zàishuō, gǎitiān zàishuō.) |
| David: Okay. A lot of useful stuff. First is this first word, to have time. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Echo: 有空。(Yǒu kòng.) |
| David: To have time. |
| Echo: 有空。(Yǒu kòng.) |
| David: This 空 (Kōng) is fourth tone, not first tone. |
| Echo: 没错, 别错了。(Méi cuò, bié cuòle.) |
| David: Yeah tricky little change in pronunciation. We’ve run into other ways of saying this in earlier lessons. |
| Echo: 唔, 比如说 有时间? (Wú, bǐrú shuō yǒu shíjiān?) |
| David: Do you have time? |
| Echo: Or 方便? (Fāngbiàn?) |
| David: Yeah, are you convenient, are you free? Right, this is a noun. Last one. |
| Echo: 有空。 (Yǒu kòng.) |
| David: Do you have time? Next we have to have something it’s happening. |
| Echo: 有事。(Yǒushì.) |
| David: And don’t forget the [R] in there. |
| Echo: 事。(Shì.) |
| David: Right. So it’s got a soft R sound. This isn’t necessarily bad. |
| Echo: No. |
| David: Yeah it can be but here it’s just you’ve got something to do. Right? |
| Echo: 你有事吗？(Nǐ yǒushì ma?) |
| David: Yeah. Moving on, we have |
| Echo: 抽时间。(Chōu shíjiān.) |
| David: Which is pretty advanced. This 抽 (Chōu) it means literally to pull or to draw. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: Right like the word for drawer. |
| Echo: 抽屉。(Chōutì.) |
| David: Right or to smoke. |
| Echo: 抽烟。(Chōuyān.) |
| David: Right which is literally you are pulling on a cigarette. |
| Echo:对。(Duì.) |
| David: So here it means can I do the pull out or to find some kind of time. |
| Echo: This is a very, very polite way to ask someone to find some time for you. |
| David: Yeah. So you could say |
| Echo: 你可以抽时间给我吗? (Nǐ kěyǐ chōu shíjiān gěi wǒ ma?) |
| David: Yeah. Can you 抽时间 (Chōu shíjiān) and give it to me. |
| Echo: Yeah or even more polite 你可以抽点时间给我吗? (Nǐ kěyǐ chōu diǎn shíjiān gěi wǒ ma?) |
| David: Yeah. Can you pull out a little bit of time and give it to me. |
| Echo: 对。 (Duì.) |
| David: And Echo here was putting the give it to me after the verb phrase. We could do that with this but we could also put it before as with most verbs. |
| Echo: 没错, 比如说 你可以给我抽点时间吗? (Méi cuò, bǐrú shuō nǐ kěyǐ gěi wǒ chōu diǎn shíjiān ma?) |
| David: Can you find a little bit of time for me? Right, so the key thing here I think is these two verbs. |
| Echo: 有空。(Yǒu kòng.) |
| David: And |
| Echo: 有事。(Yǒushì.) |
| David: To have time and to have things that you need to do. Right but don’t forget this, to find time. |
| Echo:抽时间。 (Chōu shíjiān.) |
| David: Yeah it’s a really, really polite word and you can say things like I am sorry, I just can’t find time. |
| Echo: 不好意思, 我没法抽时间 (Bù hǎoyìsi, wǒ méi fǎ chōu shíjiān) |
| David: Yeah. And with that, let’s get to our grammar section. It’s grammar time. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Echo: Old friend again. |
| David: Yes our old friend again. |
| Echo: 对。 (Duì.) |
| David: Nicely put. We are talking today about this character. |
| Echo: 再。(Zài.) |
| David: Again |
| Echo: 再。(Zài.) |
| David: And that’s what it means, it’s again. We see it in our dialogue in this wonderful phrase. |
| Echo: 改天再说。(Gǎitiān zàishuō.) |
| David: Let’s talk about it another day. |
| Echo: 改天再说。 (Gǎitiān zàishuō.) |
| David: Yeah. And here we’ve got 改天 (Gǎitiān) which is, its set word phrase right? |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| David: Right it means to do something another day. |
| Echo: Change the day. |
| David: Change the day. Change the day again to speak. |
| Echo: 改天再说。(Gǎitiān zàishuō.) |
| David: Right. So technically this… |
| Echo: 再。(Zài.) |
| David: Is an adverb. We put it in front of verbs. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: And it’s really, really common. |
| Echo: 对,很多。(Duì, hěnduō.) |
| David: You get it all the time. For instance, |
| Echo: 比如说 明天再联系。(Bǐrú shuōmíng tiān zài liánxì.) |
| David: I will be in touch again tomorrow. |
| Echo: 明天再联系。(Míngtiān zài liánxì.) |
| David: Right. Now if you are saying that to someone, you don’t need to specify the subject. |
| Echo: 或者是 下次再约时间。(Huòzhě shì xià cì zài yuē shíjiān.) |
| David: We will set the time next time. |
| Echo: 比如说你和一个人吃完饭以后, 然后可以说我们今天很开心, 下次再约时间吃饭。(Bǐrú shuō nǐ hé yīgè rén chī wán fàn yǐhòu, ránhòu kěyǐ shuō wǒmen jīntiān hěn kāixīn, xià cì zài yuē shíjiān chīfàn.) |
| David: Yeah where we are happy today, we are going to set a time next time. Right, that’s more confusing in English than Chinese. A third example might be, I don’t have time now. Let’s take a look tomorrow. |
| Echo: 我现在没时间, 明天再看。(Wǒ xiànzài méi shíjiān, míngtiān zài kàn.) |
| David: Right. So this doesn’t mean right now, we are looking at my time tomorrow. Now it means now I don’t have time, tomorrow maybe my schedule will have changed. |
| Echo: 对, 明天再看。(Duì, míngtiān zài kàn.) |
| David: Right. So this is also a polite way to well, not deal with things. |
| Echo: 对, 我现在很忙,明天再做吧! (Duì, wǒ xiànzài hěn máng, míngtiān zài zuò ba!) |
| David: Yes that’s procrastination. Last but not least, you might hear someone say that it’s too late, let’s do it tomorrow. |
| Echo: 太晚了,明天再做吧! (Tài wǎnle, míngtiān zài zuò ba!) |
| David: It’s too late, let’s do it again tomorrow. |
| Echo: 太晚了,明天再做吧! (Tài wǎnle, míngtiān zài zuò ba!) |
| David: Yeah and implicit in this is the idea that you are continuing something that you’ve done before. Right so it’s not doing something for the first time. It’s usually continuing the activity you are doing right then. |
| Echo: 再。(Zài.) |
Outro |
| David: Okay. And with that, that’s the end of our lesson for today. Before we let you go, Echo. |
| Echo: 我想再告诉大家一次。(Wǒ xiǎng zài gàosù dàjiā yí cì.) |
| David: Yes what do you want to tell them? |
| Echo: If you don’t have an account, go to chineseclass101.com and create one. |
| David: Yes, yes it is free. It takes all of 7 seconds. |
| Echo: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| David: And that’s on a slow internet connection. All you need is an email address where we can mail you your password and that gets you access to some really useful tools on the site. |
| Echo: 对。(Duì.) |
| David: For now though, we are done. From Beijing, I am David. |
| Echo:我是Echo。(Wǒ shì Echo.) |
| David: Thank you for listening and we will see you online. |
| Echo: 再见。(Zàijiàn.) |
| David: Bye bye. |
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