Learn how to position time phrases correctly in your speech
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Brendan: You’re listening to ChineseClass101.com, the fastest, easiest, funniest way to learn Chinese. I’m Brendan. |
| Echo: Hi, 大家好，我是Echo.(Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì Echo.) |
| Brendan: And we’re coming today with Lower Intermediate season one, lesson number 21: “Working your way through school” |
| Echo: This conversation takes place in the classroom. And there are two classmates. |
| Brendan: Right, they’re friends as usual. |
| Echo: They’re speaking casual mandarin. |
| Brendan: Now, we’re going to take you to the dialogue in just a moment, but before we do that, a reminder: We love hearing from you. |
| Echo: That’s right. |
| Brendan: We don’t like sitting in a room and just speaking to nobody in particular. |
| Echo: Yeah. We love feedbacks. |
| Brendan: We absolutely love feedback. If you have any questions, write to us, you’ll make our day. |
| Echo: So, you can either write to us at ChineseClass101.com or leave a comment on the site. |
| Brendan: And we really do look forward to hear from you. |
| Echo: 没错 (Méi cuò) |
| Brendan: All right, let’s go to the dialogue. You know, I know people who worked their way through college, most of the people I know, actually. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A:你这个学期选了多少课？(Nǐ zhège xuéqī xuǎn le duōshao kè?) |
| B:挺多的，五门。(Tǐng duō de, wǔ mén.) |
| A:等等， 你不是有份兼职吗？(Děngděng, nǐ bù shì yǒu fèn jiānzhí ma?) |
| B:对，我一个星期工作三十个小时。(Duì, wǒ yī ge xīngqī gōngzuò sānshí ge xiǎoshí.) |
| A:真忙。(Zhēn máng.) |
| B:没问题，我不睡觉就好了。(Méiwèntí, wǒ bù shuìjiào jiù hǎo le.) |
| Brendan: Once more, slowly. |
| A:你这个学期选了多少课？(Nǐ zhège xuéqī xuǎn le duōshao kè?) |
| B:挺多的，五门。(Tǐng duō de, wǔ mén.) |
| A:等等， 你不是有份兼职吗？(Děngděng, nǐ bù shì yǒu fèn jiānzhí ma?) |
| B:对，我一个星期工作三十个小时。(Duì, wǒ yī ge xīngqī gōngzuò sānshí ge xiǎoshí.) |
| A:真忙。(Zhēn máng.) |
| B:没问题，我不睡觉就好了。(Méiwèntí, wǒ bù shuìjiào jiù hǎo le.) |
| Brendan: And now, with English translation. |
| A:你这个学期选了多少课？(Nǐ zhège xuéqī xuǎn le duōshao kè?) |
| A: How many classes did you sign up for this semester? |
| B:挺多的，五门。(Tǐng duō de, wǔ mén.) |
| B: Lots. Five classes. |
| A:等等， 你不是有份兼职吗？(Děngděng, nǐ bù shì yǒu fèn jiānzhí ma?) |
| A: Wait. Don't you have a part time job? |
| B:对，我一个星期工作三十个小时。(Duì, wǒ yī ge xīngqī gōngzuò sānshí ge xiǎoshí.) |
| B: Yeah. I work thirty hours a week. |
| A:真忙。(Zhēn máng.) |
| A: That's a lot of work. |
| B:没问题，我不睡觉就好了。(Méiwèntí, wǒ bù shuìjiào jiù hǎo le.) |
| B: It's no problem. I just don't sleep. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Echo: Yeah? |
| Brendan: And it really is tough. Taking like four or five classes a semester and working on top of that. |
| Echo: You know, I remember one semester, I think it was junior year, I got 14 lessons. |
| Brendan: Fourteen separate classes in one semester? |
| Echo: Yes. |
| Brendan: How do you do that? Anyway, we’ve got some vocabulary about part time jobs and course [loans] and things like that. Let’s take a look at it really quickly. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Echo: 选 (xuǎn) |
| Brendan: “To choose” |
| Echo: 课 (kè) |
| Brendan: “Class” |
| Echo: 学期 (xuéqī) |
| Brendan: “Semester” |
| Echo: 安排 (ānpái) |
| Brendan: “Schedule” |
| Echo: 教授 (jiàoshòu) |
| Brendan: “Professor” |
| Echo: 兼职 (jiānzhí) |
| Brendan: “Part time job” |
| Echo: 上课 (shàngkè) |
| Brendan: “Attend a class” |
| Echo: 工作 (gōngzuò) |
| Brendan: “Work” |
| Echo: 课堂 (kètáng) |
| Brendan: “Classroom” |
| Echo: 睡觉 (shuì jiào) |
| Brendan: “Sleep” |
| Echo: 睡觉 (shuì jiào) |
| Brendan: There’s a nice progression in those last words. We go from “work” to “classroom” to “sleep”. |
| Echo: Right. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Brendan: Anyway, let’s take a look at some simple sentences, so we can see the way these words behave in their natural environment. |
| Echo: Right. The first word is 选。(Xuǎn.) |
| Brendan: Which means “to choose” or in the context of classes “to sign up for”. |
| Echo: 我得选6门课才行。(Wǒ dé xuǎn 6 mén kè cái xíng.) |
| Brendan: “I’ve got a sign up for six courses.” |
| Echo:我得选6门课才行。(Wǒ dé xuǎn 6 mén kè cái xíng.) Where we have 课。(Kè.) |
| Brendan: That is a “class” or a “course”. |
| Echo: 你上了几门课？(Nǐ shàngle jǐ mén kè?) |
| Brendan: “How many classes did you go to?” |
| Echo: 你上了几门课？(Nǐ shàngle jǐ mén kè?) Next word is 学期。(Xuéqí.) |
| Brendan: That is a “semester”. |
| Echo: 这个学期我选了李教授的课。(Zhège xuéqí wǒ xuǎnle lǐ jiàoshòu de kè.) |
| Brendan: “I signed up for professor’s 李 (Lǐ) course this semester.” He is a famously easy [grader], this professor 李 (Lǐ). All the kids won’t take his class because it’s a guaranteed A. |
| Echo: 这个学期我选了李教授的课。安排。(Zhège xuéqí wǒ xuǎnle lǐ jiàoshòu de kè. Ānpái.) |
| Brendan: That is a “schedule” or “arrangements”. |
| Echo: 你的安排都满了吧？(Nǐ de ānpái dōu mǎnle ba?) |
| Brendan: “Your schedule must be full.” |
| Echo: 你的安排都满了吧？教授。(Nǐ de ānpái dōu mǎnle ba? Jiàoshòu.) |
| Brendan: That is “professor” as in “professor 李 (Lǐ)”. |
| Echo: 李教授的课挺难的。(Lǐ jiàoshòu de kè tǐng nán de.) |
| Brendan: “Professor 李 (Lǐ)’s course is very difficult.” |
| Echo: 李教授的课挺难的。(Lǐ jiàoshòu de kè tǐng nán de.) |
| Brendan: This is the problem with somebody saying “Hey, you’ve got to sign up for professor 李 (Lǐ)’s course. It’s really easy.” There are a lot of professor 李 (Lǐ). You have to make sure you get the right one. |
| Echo: That’s right. 兼职 (Jiānzhí) |
| Brendan: That is a “part time job”. |
| Echo: 你还在做兼职吗？(Nǐ hái zài zuò jiānzhí ma?) |
| Brendan: “Do you still work part time?” |
| Echo: 你还在做兼职吗？上课。(Nǐ hái zài zuò jiānzhí ma? Shàngkè.) |
| Brendan: “To attend class” |
| Echo: 我要赶去上课了。(Wǒ yào gǎn qù shàngkèle.) |
| Brendan: “I got to rush to class.” |
| Echo: 我要赶去上课了。工作。(Wǒ yào gǎn qù shàngkèle. Gōngzuò.) |
| Brendan: “Work” |
| Echo: 我每周工作40个小时。(Wǒ měi zhōu gōngzuò 40 gè xiǎoshí.) |
| Brendan: “I work 48 hours a week.” |
| Echo: 我每周工作40个小时。课堂。(Wǒ měi zhōu gōngzuò 40 gè xiǎoshí. Kètáng.) |
| Brendan: “Classroom” |
| Echo: 我们的课堂在哪？(Wǒmen de kètáng zài nǎ?) |
| Brendan: “ Where is our classroom.” |
| Echo: 睡觉。(Shuìjiào.) |
| Brendan: “Sleep” |
| Echo: 我都没时间睡觉了。(Wǒ dū méi shíjiān shuìjiàole.) |
| Brendan: “I don’t even have time to sleep.” |
| Echo: 我都没时间睡觉了。(Wǒ dū méi shíjiān shuìjiàole.) |
| Brendan: All right. So, that’s our vocabulary. And we’ve seen in the simple sentences the way these words work in context. I’m kind of conflicted about his grammar point because on one hand I get excited about grammar points, on the other hand I have a hard time getting excited about work. |
| Echo: 对，我也是。(Duì, wǒ yěshì.) But anyway, let’s take a look. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Brendan: It’s grammar time. |
| Echo: In the dialogue, 我一个星期工作三十个小时。(Wǒ yīgè xīngqí gōngzuò sānshí gè xiǎoshí.) |
| Brendan: “I work 30 hours a week.” |
| Echo: 我一个星期工作三十个小时。(Wǒ yīgè xīngqí gōngzuò sānshí gè xiǎoshí.) |
| Brendan: Now we can take that, and basically make it a question by saying |
| Echo: 你一个星期工作多少个小时？(Nǐ yīgè xīngqí gōngzuò duōshǎo gè xiǎoshí?) |
| Brendan: That is “How many hours do you work in a week?” |
| Echo: 你一个星期工作多少个小时？(Nǐ yīgè xīngqí gōngzuò duōshǎo gè xiǎoshí?) |
| Brendan: Right. So, to make this a question, we take out the number and we replace it with a word meaning “how many”. |
| Echo: 多少。(Duōshǎo.) |
| Brendan: Let’s look at some other sentences like this. |
| Echo: 我一周做10个小时的兼职。(Wǒ yīzhōu zuò 10 gè xiǎoshí de jiānzhí.) |
| Brendan: “I work 10 hours a week at my part time job.” |
| Echo: 我一周做10个小时的兼职。(Wǒ yīzhōu zuò 10 gè xiǎoshí de jiānzhí.) |
| Brendan: Now, the pattern for this is period of time, in this case a week. |
| Echo: 一周 (Yīzhōu) |
| Brendan: Then, the verb. |
| Echo: 做 (Zuò) |
| Brendan: And then “how much it happens” either “how many times” or “for how much time”. |
| Echo: 10个小时 (10 Gè xiǎoshí) in the sentence. |
| Brendan: 10 hours. Now, we can use the same pattern to talk about things other than work. We can say “I watch three movies a month.” |
| Echo: 我一个月看3部电影。(Wǒ yīgè yuè kàn 3 bù diànyǐng.) |
| Brendan: And this is actually the same basic structure. We have time. |
| Echo: 一个月 (Yīgè yuè) |
| Brendan: We have our verb, in this case, “to watch”. |
| Echo: 看 (Kàn) |
| Brendan: And then we have “how often it happens” or “how much of it happens”, in this case, “three movies every month”. |
| Echo: 3部电影，我一个月看3部电影。(3 Bù diànyǐng, wǒ yīgè yuè kàn 3 bù diànyǐng.) |
| Brendan: Yeah, this is a very flexible pattern so you can use it for really simple sentences as we’ve been doing or for much more complicated ones. |
| Echo: 他一天上不了几节课。(Tā yītiān shàng bùliǎo jǐ jié kè.) |
| Brendan: Yeah. Now this is actually negative. And what it means is “he can hardly go to any classes in one day”. |
| Echo: 他一天上不了几节课。(Tā yītiān shàng bùliǎo jǐ jié kè.) |
| Brendan: Now this is more conceptually complicated but the same thing is going on here. We make the sentence negative by negative the verb in the middle of the sentence. |
| Echo: 上不了 (Shàng bùliǎo) |
| Brendan: That is to be “unable to attend”. |
| Echo: We can have a question, too. |
| Brendan: Right, using the same structure. |
| Echo: 你怎么每星期工作那么长时间？(Nǐ zěnme měi xīngqí gōngzuò nàme cháng shíjiān?) |
| Brendan: “How can it be that you spend so much working every week?” |
| Echo: 你怎么每星期工作那么长时间？(Nǐ zěnme měi xīngqí gōngzuò nàme cháng shíjiān?) |
Outro |
| Brendan: Now that about wraps it up for this lesson. If you’d like to practice this grammar point or anything else we’ve ever covered, log into our premium learning center. We’ve got professional tutors who’re standing by, waiting to help you improve your Chinese with one on one customized lessons. From Beijing, I’m Brandon. |
| Echo: 我是Echo.(Wǒ shì Echo.) |
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