Learn how to congratulate people and wish them well on various occasions
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chris: Hi everyone. Welcome to chineseclass101.com. I am Chris. |
| Echo: Hi, 大家好, 我是(Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì)Echo。 |
| Chris: And this is lower beginner, season 1, Lesson 3. |
| Echo: Having a Happy Birthday in China. |
| Chris: Okay and this dialogue is between three friends, one of them has a problem that we all have, getting older and older and older… |
| Echo: Well just celebrating her birthday. |
| Chris: Okay. |
| Echo: Yeah and of course because they are friends, so they are speaking casual Mandarin as always. |
| Chris: Exactly. So let’s listen to the dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A: 王姐，生日快乐！(Wáng Jiě, shēngrì kuàilè!) |
| B: 祝你生日快乐！(Zhù nǐ shēngrì kuàilè!) |
| A: 谢谢你们。(Xièxiè nǐmen..) |
| B: 祝你新的一年身体健康。(Zhù nǐ xīn de yì nián shēntǐ jiànkāng.) |
| A: 还有一切顺利！(Hái yǒu yíqiè shùnlì!) |
| B: 谢谢，我们切蛋糕吧。(Xièxie, wǒmen qiē dàngāo ba.) |
| Chris: One more time a bit slower. |
| A: 王姐，生日快乐！(Wáng Jiě, shēngrì kuàilè!) |
| B: 祝你生日快乐！(Zhù nǐ shēngrì kuàilè!) |
| A: 谢谢你们。(Xièxiè nǐmen..) |
| B: 祝你新的一年身体健康。(Zhù nǐ xīn de yì nián shēntǐ jiànkāng.) |
| A: 还有一切顺利！(Hái yǒu yíqiè shùnlì!) |
| B: 谢谢，我们切蛋糕吧。(Xièxie, wǒmen qiē dàngāo ba.) |
| Chris: Now with the English translation. |
| Echo: 王姐，生日快乐！(Wáng Jiě, shēngrì kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Sister Wong, happy birthday. |
| Echo: 祝你生日快乐！(Zhù nǐ shēngrì kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Wishing you a happy birthday. |
| Echo: 谢谢你们。(Xièxiè nǐmen..) |
| Chris: Thanks everybody. |
| Echo: 祝你新的一年身体健康。(Zhù nǐ xīn de yì nián shēntǐ jiànkāng.) |
| Chris: I wish you a year filled with good health. |
| Echo: 还有一切顺利！(Hái yǒu yíqiè shùnlì!) |
| Chris: And everything goes smoothly. |
| Echo: 谢谢，我们切蛋糕吧。(Xièxie, wǒmen qiē dàngāo ba.) |
| Chris: Thanks. Let’s cut the cake. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Chris: So Echo, when I first came to China, someone told me that Chinese people sometimes celebrate two birthdays. |
| Echo: You mean the Chinese calendars? |
| Chris: Yeah the Lunar calendar, yeah. Yeah and said, there are two different calendars. |
| Echo: Yes well but usually people celebrate the normal one, the common one. |
| Chris: Okay so they just told me that of course they want some more presents. |
| Echo: They want more presents. Okay anyway, let’s go to our vocab now. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Echo: 王姐。(Wáng Jiě.) |
| Chris: Sister Wong. |
| Echo: 王姐,王姐,生日快乐。(Wáng Jiě,Wáng Jiě,shēngrì kuàilè.) |
| Chris: Happy birthday. |
| Echo: 生日快乐,生日快乐,祝。(shēngrì kuàilè,shēngrì kuàilè,zhù.) |
| Chris: Wishing. |
| Echo: 祝,祝,新。(zhù,zhù,xīn.) |
| Chris: New |
| Echo: 新,新,一年。 (xīn,xīn,yì nián.) |
| Chris: Year. |
| Echo: 一年,一年, 身体健康。(yì nián,yì nián,shēntǐ jiànkāng.) |
| Chris: Good health. |
| Echo: 身体健康, 身体健康, 一切顺利。(shēntǐ jiànkāng, shēntǐ jiànkāng, yíqiè shùnlì.) |
| Chris: Everything goes smoothly. |
| Echo: 一切顺利, 一切顺利。(yíqiè shùnlì, yíqiè shùnlì.) |
| Chris: Okay great. So let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases in today’s dialogue. And the first word is |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Echo: 王姐。(Wáng Jiě.) |
| Chris: Sister Wong. |
| Echo: 王姐。(Wáng Jiě.) |
| Chris: Sister Wong. |
| Echo: Actually the speaker is not 王姐(Wáng Jiě) sister yeah but he just say that, it’s because you know, Chinese people like to sound closer to each other. |
| Chris: Yeah, yeah. |
| Echo: Yeah so maybe they are just co-workers or they are just friends. Yeah but they say 王姐(Wáng Jiě) |
| Chris: When I first came to China, someone advised me, they said that I should use big brother when I am talking to people older than me. |
| Echo: Right 大哥(Dàgē) yeah or if you know like the person’s family name, you can call him like 黄大哥(Huáng dàgē)or 李大哥.(Lǐ dàgē.) That’s even closer. |
| Chris: Oh! What’s the next one? |
| Echo: Actually next we are going to have a couple of four character words all about good wishes. |
| Chris: Okay what’s the first one? |
| Echo: 生日快乐！(shēngrì kuàilè!) |
| Chris: This is just happy birthday right? |
| Echo: Right. 生日快乐！(shēngrì kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Happy birthday. |
| Echo: Umm we hear that a lot. |
| Chris: Twice a year apparently. |
| Echo: Yeah literally that’s 生日。(Shēngrì.) |
| Chris: Birthday. |
| Echo: 快乐。(Kuàilè.) |
| Chris: Happy. So Chinese people don’t miss an opportunity to give someone good wishes right? |
| Echo: Yeah especially with 快乐。(Kuàilè.) |
| Chris: So if it’s Christmas day? |
| Echo: Yeah we say 圣诞快乐！(Shèngdàn kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Merry Christmas! |
| Echo: 圣诞快乐！(Shèngdàn kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Merry Christmas! |
| Echo: Or 新年快乐！(Xīnnián kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Happy New Year. |
| Echo: 新年快乐！(Xīnnián kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Happy New Year. |
| Echo: Or something like 新婚快乐！(Xīnhūn kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Ah this is one I hope I don’t hear soon. This is happy new marriage. |
| Echo: 新婚快乐！(Xīnhūn kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Okay great. So that’s about all the vocab. Let’s move on to some grammar. |
| Echo: Okay. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chris: It’s grammar time. Our grammar point for today is |
| Echo: 祝。(zhù.) |
| Chris: And you can hear this in the dialogue. |
| Echo: 祝你 生日快乐!(Zhù nǐ shēngrì kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Wishing you a happy birthday. |
| Echo: 祝你 生日快乐!(Zhù nǐ shēngrì kuàilè) |
| Chris: Wishing you a happy birthday. |
| Echo: That’s how we Chinese people like usually make wishes, usually give wishes. |
| Chris: In a previous lesson, we learned how to congratulate someone on an achievement. The guy got a promotion and someone said |
| Echo: 祝贺你。(Zhùhè nǐ.) |
| Chris: Congratulations. |
| Echo: Right. |
| Chris: Now in this lesson, it’s the same |
| Echo: 祝。(zhù) |
| Chris: But we are using it to give good wishes to someone on a special event. |
| Echo: Right. It’s not like okay, I congratulate you on your achievement. It’s not 祝贺(zhùhè), 祝(zhù) is to give or to express your good wishes. |
| Chris: So we can say on somebody’s birthday |
| Echo: 祝你 生日快乐！(Zhù nǐ shēngrì kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Or if it’s Christmas day, we can say |
| Echo: 祝你 圣诞快乐！(Zhù nǐ Shèngdàn kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Wish you a merry Christmas. |
| Echo: 祝你 圣诞快乐！(Zhù nǐ Shèngdàn kuàilè!) |
| Chris: So you can see, the structure here is |
| Echo: 祝(zhù) plus 你(Nǐ)or whoever and plus our magic four character words like 生日快乐！(shēngrì kuàilè!) or 圣诞快乐！(Shèngdàn kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Okay good. Shall we look at some more examples? |
| Echo: Of course. |
| Chris: How did we say happy new marriage? A lot of my friends are getting married. |
| Echo: Usually it’s 祝你们 新婚快乐！(Zhù nǐmen xīnhūn kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Wishing you a happy new marriage. |
| Echo: 祝你们 新婚快乐！ or 祝你 新年快乐！(Zhù nǐmen xīnhūn kuàilè! or Zhù nǐ xīnnián kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Wishing you a happy new year. |
| Echo: 祝你 新年快乐！(Zhù nǐ xīnnián kuàilè!) |
| Chris: Wishing you a happy new year. |
| Echo: Yeah or something without 快乐.(Kuàilè.) You can say 祝你 身体健康。(Zhù nǐ shēntǐ jiànkāng.) |
| Chris: Wishing you good health. |
| Echo: 祝你 身体健康。(Zhù nǐ shēntǐ jiànkāng.) |
| Chris: Wishing you good health. |
| Echo: Right. You can always use it to like older people. Yeah, if you don’t know what to say, you can say 祝你 一切顺利！(Zhù nǐ yīqiè shùnlì!) |
| Chris: Wishing that everything works out smoothly. |
| Echo: Right. 祝你 一切顺利!(Zhù nǐ yīqiè shùnlì!) |
| Chris: It’s something I say it all the time in Beijing. |
| Echo: Yeah that’s super useful. You know, you don’t know what to say, then just say well, 一切顺利!(Yīqiè shùnlì!) |
| Chris: It’s just a general kind of – I hope you don’t have any troubles today. |
| Echo: Yeah. |
| Chris: Okay so to recap, we have the grammar point. |
| Echo: 祝。(zhù.) |
| Chris: So Echo, who can we use this with? Can I use this with my boss? |
| Echo: Yeah you can use this with anyone. |
| Chris: My sister. |
| Echo: Yes. |
| Chris: My parents? |
| Echo: Yes. |
Outro |
| Chris: Okay right, good. Before we go, you’ve got one last tip for us. |
| Echo: That’s right. You don’t always have to say 祝你(Zhù nǐ) or 祝你们(Zhù nǐmen), you can just drop it, you can just keep this magic four-character words like 生日快乐！(shēngrì kuàilè!)or 身体健康!(shēntǐ jiànkāng!) or 一切顺利！(yíqiè shùnlì)or 新婚快乐！(Xīnhūn kuàilè!). Just keep them and drop the 祝你(Zhù nǐ) part. It works as good. |
| Chris: Okay great. So that’s all we got time for and if it’s your birthday, Echo is going to sing happy birthday for you I think. |
| Echo: What, I don’t know about that. |
| Chris: Oh I hear you went in the meeting, okay. Okay and remember that if we went too fast in the podcast, you can always… |
| Echo: Yeah find our PDFs, transcripts in our premium learning center. |
| Chris: Thanks for listening. That’s all we’ve got for you today. |
| Echo: From Beijing, 我是(Wǒ shì)Echo. |
| Chris: And I am Chris. |
| Echo: 下次见。(Xià cì jiàn.) |
| Chris: Bye bye. |
Comments
HideWhen is your birthday? Can you answer in Chinese?
你好 robert groulx！
不用谢。(Bú yòng xiè.) = No need for thanks. You're welcome. 😇
谢谢 (Xièxie) for studying with us, it's great to have you here!
Let us know if you have any questions.
Kind regards,
雷文特 (Levente)
Team ChineseClass101.com
thanks for the lesson
my favorite words are Zhù nǐ xīnnián kuàilè!
robert
Hello, John,
所以今年我25岁多了。
你的中文真好。
想信我，你真的还年轻。只要努力，慢慢地都会有的。：）
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
我是1993年出生的。所以今年我25多年了。朋友们说我还年轻。可是我心里觉得挺老了。没有家，没有 车，也还没有稳定的收入。
Hi, christopher lord,
Tthe 切 in 一切 is not a measure word. 一切 means "all, every, everything".
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Is the 切 in 一切 originally a measure word? Or is it only used in this context as 'all, every, everything'?
卫力，你好。
身体＝body. 健康=healthy
一切=everything
顺利=goes well
身体健康：Wish you good health.
一切顺利：Wish you everything going well.
谢谢。
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
大家好！
This was a good lesson, because I wanted to learn some well wishes, I went afterwards to the free lists and found lists for the holidays with plenty of variations . It does help to explore the site.
There were two phrases in the lesson that could have been explained a bit more fully (I realize there's a time limit). The first is 身体建康。 What does that literally mean? Body ....? The second phrase was 一切顺利。 What does it literally mean? One cut...?
谢谢！
卫力