Learn about prepositions and where you put them
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| INTRODUCTION |
| DAVID: Welcome to ChineseClass101.com. I'm David. |
| Amber: 大家好，我是安伯。(Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì ān bó.) |
| DAVID: And we’re here today with Upper Beginner, Season 1, Lesson 12 - The case of the missing Chinese cellphone. |
| Amber: 对，手机在那呀？(Duì, shǒujī zài nà ya?) |
| DAVID: Right. Where is my cellphone? Amber, this one hits close to home today. |
| Amber: Ah ……. 噢！天啊！真的。(Ō! Tiān a! Zhēn de.) |
| DAVID: Yeah, Amber just lost her phone. Anyway, we’ve got a dialogue here which is casual Mandarin, as always, and it’s between two friends, one of whom, like Amber, can’t find their phone. |
| Amber: 手机没有了。(Shǒujī méiyǒule.) |
| DIALOGUE |
| A: 我的手机呢？(Wǒ de shǒujī ne?) |
| B: 你放哪儿了？(Nǐ fàng nǎr le?) |
| A: 我不记得了。(Wǒ bú jìde le.) |
| B: 那我给你打个电话吧。(Nà wǒ gěi nǐ dǎ gè diànhuà ba.) |
| A: 我关静音了。(Wǒ guān jìngyīn le.) |
| B: 应该有振动吧？(Yīnggāi yǒu zhèndòng ba?) |
| A: 哦，对。(O, duì.) |
| A: Where is my cellphone? |
| B: Where did you put it? |
| A: I don't remember. |
| B: Then I'll give you a telephone call. |
| A: I muted the sound. |
| B: It should have vibration, right? |
| A: Oh, right. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| DAVID: Right. So this lesson is if you lose your phone, you need to get someone to call your phone. |
| Amber: 没错，这个是最好的。(Méi cuò, zhège shì zuì hǎo de.) |
| DAVID: Yes. Yes, this lesson is from the heart today with Amber. Our vocabulary, of course, you can use it to make calls, you can use it to describe things that you’ve lost. |
| Amber: 对，没错。(Duì, méi cuò.) |
| DAVID: Let’s get to it. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Amber: 手机。(shǒujī.) |
| DAVID: Cellphone. |
| Amber: 手 机, 手机, 丢。(shǒujī, shǒujī, diū.) |
| DAVID: To lose. |
| Amber: 丢, 丢, 放。(diū, diū, fàng.) |
| DAVID: To put. |
| Amber: 放, 放, 记得。(fàng, fàng, jìde.) |
| DAVID: To remember. |
| Amber: 记 得, 记得, 打电话。(jìde, jìde, dǎ diànhuà.) |
| DAVID: To make a telephone call. |
| Amber: 打 电 话, 打电话, 关。(dǎ diànhuà, dǎ diànhuà, guān.) |
| DAVID: To turn off. |
| Amber: 关, 关, 静音。(guān, guān, jìngyīn.) |
| DAVID: To mute the sound. |
| Amber: 静 音, 静音, 应该。(jìngyīn, jìngyīn, yīnggāi.) |
| DAVID: Should. |
| Amber: 应 该, 应该, 振动。(yīnggāi, yīnggāi, zhèndòng.) |
| DAVID: To vibrate. |
| Amber: 振 动, 振动。(zhèndòng, zhèndòng.) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| DAVID: Now, let’s have a close look at some of these words. Our first is… |
| Amber: 手机。(shǒujī.) |
| DAVID: Cellphone. |
| Amber: 手机。(shǒujī.) |
| DAVID: In our last lesson, we had “treadmill”. |
| Amber: 跑步机。(Pǎobù jī.) |
| DAVID: And that was “a running machine”. |
| Amber: 对, 跑步机。(Duì, pǎobù jī.) |
| DAVID: This is “a hand machine”. |
| Amber: 手机, 手里面的。(Shǒujī, shǒu lǐmiàn de.) |
| DAVID: Yes, so it’s a machine that you put in your hand. And if you’re Amber this morning, you’ve been saying, “I lost my cellphone.” |
| Amber: 我丢了我的手机。(Wǒ diūle wǒ de shǒujī.) |
| DAVID: I lost my cellphone. |
| Amber: 我丢了我的手机。(Wǒ diūle wǒ de shǒujī.) |
| DAVID: Our next word is this word - "to lose”. |
| Amber: 丢。(diū.) |
| DAVID: To lose. |
| Amber: 丢。(diū.) |
| DAVID: First tone. What’s interesting about it is you can say “I lost my cellphone”, just like that previous example. |
| Amber: 唔，对，我丢了我的手机。(Wú, duì, wǒ diūle wǒ de shǒujī.) |
| DAVID: Or you can reverse that and you could say, “My cellphone’s lost.” |
| Amber: 我的手机丢了。(Wǒ de shǒujī diūle.) |
| DAVID: I lost my cellphone. |
| Amber: 我丢了我的手机。(Wǒ diūle wǒ de shǒujī.) |
| DAVID: My cellphone’s lost. |
| Amber: 我的手机丢了。(Wǒ de shǒujī diūle.) |
| DAVID: Right. So it can be active or it could be passive. Chinese people will generally use the passive construction, so will say, “My cellphone’s lost.” |
| Amber: 唔，我的手机丢了。(Wú, wǒ de shǒujī diūle.) |
| DAVID: Right. Or my laptop’s lost. |
| Amber: 我的笔记本丢了。(Wǒ de bǐjìběn diūle.) |
| DAVID: Right. It implies that it’s not someone’s fault. |
| Amber: 唔, 没错。(Wú, méi cuò.) |
| DAVID: Right, it just happened. It disappeared, it got 丢 (diū) on its own. |
| Amber: 对。(Duì.) |
| DAVID: So our next word is “to dial a telephone”. |
| Amber: 打电话。(Dǎ diànhuà.) |
| DAVID: To dial a telephone. |
| Amber: 打电话。(Dǎ diànhuà.) |
| DAVID: Right, the verb there is “to hit”. |
| Amber: 打。(Dǎ.) |
| DAVID: Okay, so that’s our vocab section for today. Now we’re going to move on to our grammar point. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| M2: It’s grammar time! |
| DAVID: Our grammar point today is all about prepositions. |
| Amber: 对，介词。(Duì, jiècí.) |
| DAVID: In previous lessons, we’ve taught you that prepositions come in front of verbs in Chinese. |
| Amber: 唔, 在动词的前面。(Wú, zài dòngcí de qiánmiàn.) |
| DAVID: Right. For instance, the preposition… |
| Amber: 在。(Zài.) |
| DAVID: Which means “at”. |
| Amber: 对。(Duì.) |
| DAVID: You might say “I work at Beijing.” |
| Amber: 我在北京工作。(Wǒ zài běijīng gōngzuò.) |
| DAVID: So we’re putting 在 (Zài) and then the place in front of the verb. |
| Amber: 唔，在北京工作。(Wú, zài běijīng gōngzuò.) |
| DAVID: Another example is… |
| Amber: 给。(Gěi.) |
| DAVID: Which means “to give” as a verb, but as a preposition it means “for” or “to”. |
| Amber: 没错, 给。(Méi cuò, gěi.) |
| DAVID: For instance, “I bought it for you.” |
| Amber: 我给你买的。(Wǒ gěi nǐ mǎi de.) |
| DAVID: I bought it for you. |
| Amber: 我给你买的。(Wǒ gěi nǐ mǎi de.) |
| DAVID: Right. Now, in these cases, the prepositions coming in front of the verb. |
| Amber: 对, 没错。(Duì, méi cuò.) |
| DAVID: What’s tricky is that sometimes we’re going to see prepositions, especially the preposition 在coming after a verb. |
| Amber: 对，很常见。(Duì, hěn chángjiàn.) |
| DAVID: Sometimes we’re going to see this, it can confuse people. Let’s have an example. |
| Amber: 你放在哪儿了？(Nǐ fàng zài nǎ'erle?) |
| DAVID: Where did you put it? |
| Amber: 你放在哪儿了？(Nǐ fàng zài nǎ'erle?) |
| DAVID: Or “Where did you lose it?” |
| Amber: 你丢在哪儿了？(Nǐ diū zài nǎ'erle?) |
| DAVID: Where did you lose it? |
| Amber: 你丢在哪儿了？(Nǐ diū zài nǎ'erle?) |
| DAVID: Right. Now, this confuses people because we’ve taught you one thing, and you see a sentence like this… |
| Amber: 对。(Duì.) |
| DAVID: What’s happening? Are we lying? No. The trick is that in these cases, 在 (Zài) is being treated as a verb complement. |
| Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| DAVID: There are a couple of verbs like… |
| Amber: 放。(Fàng.) |
| DAVID: To place. |
| Amber: 丢。(diū.) |
| DAVID: To lose. |
| Amber: 掷。(Zhì.) |
| DAVID: To throw. |
| Amber: 对。(Duì.) |
| DAVID: Where, because of the meaning of the word, it makes sense to put 在 (Zài) after the verb. You can't do this with every single verb. So you couldn’t say 工作在 .(Gōngzuò zài.) |
| Amber: 对。(Duì.) |
| DAVID: Right? And most of the verbs you can do this with are one character long. |
| Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| DAVID: But you are going to see this on occasion. Let’s have a couple more examples. |
| Amber: 手机丢在车里了。(Shǒujī diū zài chē lǐle.) |
| DAVID: The cellphone is lost in the car. |
| Amber: 手机丢在车里了。(Shǒujī diū zài chē lǐle.) |
| DAVID: Or “I left the phone in the car”, right? |
| Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| DAVID: Another example. |
| Amber: 笔记本放在桌子上。(Bǐjìběn fàng zài zhuōzi shàng.) |
| DAVID: The laptop is one the table. |
| Amber: 笔记本放在桌子上。(Bǐjìběn fàng zài zhuōzi shàng.) |
| DAVID: How about “I threw it in the trash”? |
| Amber: 我扔在拉基箱里了。(Wǒ rēng zài lā jī xiāng lǐle.) |
| DAVID: I threw it in the trash. |
| Amber: 我扔在拉基箱里了。(Wǒ rēng zài lā jī xiāng lǐle.) |
| DAVID: Right. So, in these cases, 在 and most the time, it’s 在 (Zài), it’s not acting as a preposition. |
| Amber: 对，不是介词。(Duì, bùshì jiècí.) |
| DAVID: Yeah, it’s a verb complement. Don’t let this throw you off your game dealing with prepositions normally. |
| Amber: 对。(Duì.) |
| DAVID: One final point to make though is often when you have verbs that will take 在 (Zài) as a verb complement, you can often drop them in speech. |
| Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| DAVID: So those three sentences we just gave you, you can use them without the verb complement too. |
| Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| DAVID: For instance. |
| Amber: 手机丢车里了。(Shǒujī diū chē lǐle.) |
| DAVID: I left my cellphone in the car. |
| Amber: 手机丢车里了。(Shǒujī diū chē lǐle.) |
| DAVID: I left my cellphone in the car. |
| Amber: 笔记本放桌子上。(Bǐjìběn fàng zhuōzi shàng.) |
| DAVID: I put the laptop on the table. |
| Amber: 笔记本放桌子上。(Bǐjìběn fàng zhuōzi shàng.) |
| DAVID: “The laptop is one the table.” Last example. |
| Amber: 我扔拉基箱里了。(Wǒ rēng lā jī xiāng lǐle.) |
| DAVID: I threw it in the trash. |
| Amber: 我扔拉基箱里了。(Wǒ rēng lā jī xiāng lǐle.) |
| DAVID: “I threw it in the trash.” So, remember, prepositions go in front of verbs in Chinese. |
| Amber: 对。(Duì.) |
| DAVID: But there are some cases when you’re going to run into characters like… |
| Amber: 在。(Zài.) |
| DAVID: After a verb. |
| Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
| DAVID: When you see this, it’s a verb complement, it’s not a preposition. And the tricky thing is that you can leave this out sometimes in more colloquial speech. |
| Amber: 没错。(Méi cuò.) |
Outro |
| DAVID: Now, it can be a bit tough to remember this if all you’re doing is listening to podcasts. |
| Amber: True, yeah. |
| DAVID: So that’s why we’ve got premium transcripts on ChineseClass101.com. |
| Amber: Yeah. |
| DAVID: Right? They’ve got the dialogue, we’ve got the vocab list and we’ve written down these grammar points with example sentences. |
| Amber: Right. So come to ChineseClass101.com. |
| DAVID: And download them. It is really going to help you. |
| Amber: Right. |
| DAVID: For now though, that is all the time we have and Amber needs to go buy a new phone. So thank you for listening, and we’re looking forward to seeing you on the site. |
| Amber: 下次见。(Xià cì jiàn.) |
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