Learn the conjunction 就, which is used to signify temporal and causal relationships between actions
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| 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 are here today with Upper Beginner, Season 1, Lesson 2 - You’d better use a Chinese dictionary. |
| Amber: 你最好查个字典。(Nǐ zuì hǎo chá gè zìdiǎn.) |
| DAVID: Right. That’s “You’d better use a dictionary”. So… |
| Amber: 对，没错。(Duì, méi cuò.) |
| DAVID: I guess if it’s a 字典(Zìdiǎn), it is a Chinese dictionary. it’s a character dictionary. |
| Amber: 没错, 一个字，一个字的。(Méi cuò, yīgè zì, yīgè zì de.) |
| DAVID: So where does our lesson take place today? |
| Amber: 发生在教室里。(Fāshēng zài jiàoshì lǐ.) |
| DAVID: So it’s in a classroom and it’s between two students. |
| Amber: 对，两个学生。(Duì, liǎng gè xuéshēng.) |
| DAVID: Who are speaking causal mandarin, as always . Let’s go listen. |
| Amber: 我们听对话吧！(Wǒmen tīng duìhuà ba!) |
| DIALOGUE |
| A:这个字我不认识。(Zhègè zì wǒ bú rènshi.) |
| B:查字典吧，知道拼音吗？(Chá zìdiǎn ba, zhīdào pīnyīn ma?) |
| A:不知道。(Bù zhīdào.) |
| B:那就查部首。(Nà jiù chá bùshǒu ba.) |
| A:什么是部首？(Shénme shì bùshǒu?) |
| B:你知道笔划吧？(Nǐ zhīdào bǐhuà ba?) |
| A: I don't know this character. |
| B: Use a dictionary then, do you know the pinyin? |
| A: No. |
| B: Then check the radical. |
| A: What is a radical? |
| A: Do you know what a stroke is? |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| DAVID: Ok, this dialogue is all about using a dictionary. |
| Amber: 对。(Duì.) |
| DAVID: Or, I guess, not using a dictionary. |
| Amber: 查字典或者不查字典。(Chá zìdiǎn huòzhě bù chá zìdiǎn.) |
| DAVID: Yes, because the speaker does not know the basics. |
| Amber: 什么都不知道，最重要的都不知道。(Shénme dōu bù zhīdào, Zuì zhòngyào de dōu bù zhīdào.) |
| DAVID: Doesn’t know Pinyin, doesn’t know radicals, doesn’t know strokes. Hopefully, this is not you. But if it is, don’t worry, you’re going to be up to speed by the end of this lesson. |
| Amber: 对，没错, 因为今天的课都是关于查字典。(Duì, méi cuò, yīn wéi jīntiān de kè dōu shì guānyú chá zìdiǎn.) |
| DAVID: Great. And with that said, let’s get to the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Amber: 字。(zì.) |
| DAVID: Character. |
| Amber: 字, 字, 词。 (zì, zì, cí.) |
| DAVID: Word. |
| Amber: 词, 词, 认识。(cí, cí, rènshi.) |
| DAVID: To recognize. |
| Amber: 认 识, 认识, 查。(rènshi, rènshi, chá.) |
| DAVID: To look up. |
| Amber: 查, 查, 字典。(chá, chá, zìdiǎn.) |
| DAVID: Dictionary. |
| Amber: 字 典, 字典, 拼音。(zìdiǎn, zìdiǎn, pīnyīn.) |
| DAVID: Pinyin. |
| Amber: 拼 音, 拼音, 部首。(pīnyīn, pīnyīn, bùshǒu.) |
| DAVID: Radical. |
| Amber: 部 首, 部首, 笔划。(bùshǒu, bùshǒu, bǐhuà.) |
| DAVID: Stroke. |
| Amber: 笔 划, 笔划。(bǐhuà, bǐhuà.) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| DAVID: Okay, let’s have a closer look at some of these words. Our first word is… |
| Amber: 字。(zì.) |
| DAVID: Character. |
| Amber: 字。(zì.) |
| DAVID: Right. And we see this in the word “character”, “dictionary”. |
| Amber: 字典。(zìdiǎn.) |
| DAVID: Or “Chinese character dictionary”. |
| Amber: 中文字典。(Zhōngwén zìdiǎn.) |
| DAVID: Now, there’s also another kind of Chinese dictionary. |
| Amber: 辞典。(Cídiǎn.) |
| DAVID: Sounds really similar. This is a “word dictionary”. |
| Amber: 辞典。(Cídiǎn.) |
| DAVID: So in Chinese, you can have both the “character dictionary”. |
| Amber: 字典。(zìdiǎn.) |
| DAVID: And the “word dictionary”. |
| Amber: 辞典。(Cídiǎn.) |
| DAVID: Right. And the character ones are smaller because they are only going to give you definitions for individual characters. |
| Amber: 对， 都是单独的字。(Duì, dōu shì dāndú de zì.) |
| DAVID: Yes. Now, when you have a dictionary, you’re going to need to look up words. |
| Amber: 查。(Chá.) |
| DAVID: And that’s the verb “to look up”. |
| Amber: 查。(Chá.) |
| DAVID: It literally means “to search for”, “to search for information”. |
| Amber: 对, 有点像找的意思。(Duì, yǒudiǎn xiàng zhǎo de yìsi.) |
| DAVID: Right. So you say “to look in a dictionary”. |
| Amber: 查字典。(Chá zìdiǎn.) |
| DAVID: Or… |
| Amber: 查辞典 。(Chá cídiǎn.) |
| DAVID: Right. Now, there are three main ways to look up content in the Chinese dictionary. The first and most obvious is by using Pinyin. |
| Amber: 查拼音。(Chá pīnyīn.) |
| DAVID: Right, which is alphabetical . |
| Amber: 查拼音。(Chá pīnyīn.) |
| DAVID: Something that is a bit trickier is using a radical index. Now, first how you say “radical” in Chinese. |
| Amber: 部首。(Bù shǒu.) |
| DAVID: It literally means “component”. |
| Amber: 部首。(Bù shǒu.) |
| DAVID: Right. So characters are made of components, and you can take the most important component, you can look it up in a radical index, and that’s gonna tell you the page number of the character. |
| Amber: 对，所以你可以用这个方法，查部首 来找这个字。(Duì, suǒyǐ nǐ kěyǐ yòng zhège fāngfǎ, chá bù shǒu lái zhǎo zhège zì.) |
| DAVID: Right. Find the radical and then find the character. |
| Amber: 先找部首，然后查这个字。(Xiān zhǎo bù shǒu, ránhòu chá zhège zì.) |
| DAVID: Right. The last and most painful way of looking up a character, if everything else fails, is to count the number of strokes. |
| Amber: 查笔划, 实在地说，是在 数笔划。(Chá bǐhuà, shízài dì shuō, shì zài shù bǐhuà.) |
| DAVID: Right. So you can either say “to look up strokes”. |
| Amber: 查笔划。(Chá bǐhuà.) |
| DAVID: Or you could say “to count strokes”. |
| Amber: 数笔划。(Shù bǐhuà.) |
| DAVID: And that’s the word for “strokes”. |
| Amber: 笔划。(Bǐhuà.) |
| DAVID: And this is the most painful way because it’s the indexes are really long. Especially if you’ve got 10 strokes or 12 strokes, they just go on for pages. |
| Amber: 有的时候会有很多笔划的字。(Yǒu de shíhòu huì yǒu hěnduō bǐhuà de zì.) |
| DAVID: Yeah. And it’s tough to try to find the word you’re looking for. |
| Amber: 對, 还有很仔细的数。(Duì, hái yǒu hěn zǐxì de shù.) |
| DAVID: Yeah. So these are three ways of looking up content. |
| Amber: 拼音，部首 and 笔划。(Pīnyīn, Bù shǒu, Bǐhuà.) |
| DAVID: And don’t forget the word “to look up”. |
| Amber: 查。(Chá.) |
| DAVID: To look up. |
| Amber: 查。(Chá.) |
| DAVID: So our vocab today has been about words you can use to look things up in the dictionary. |
| Amber: 查字典用的词。(Chá zìdiǎn yòng de cí.) |
| DAVID: Right. In our grammar point we’re going to talk about really useful conjunction. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| M2: It’s grammar time! |
| DAVID: Ok. Our grammar point today is about this conjunction. |
| Amber: 就。(Jiù.) |
| DAVID: Then. |
| Amber: 就。(Jiù.) |
| DAVID: Or “so that”. |
| Amber: 对，都可以。(Duì, dōu kěyǐ.) |
| DAVID: Right. So it can mean “then”, it can mean “so that”. |
| Amber: 就。(Jiù.) |
| DAVID: The important thing is it communicates the relationship between two actions. Something happens and so our second action happens. |
| Amber: 对，在对话里 我们听见, 那就查字典。(Duì, zài duìhuà li wǒmen tīngjiàn, nà jiù chá zìdiǎn.) |
| DAVID: Right. We don’t know the character, so then look it up in the dictionary. |
| Amber: 我不知道这个词，那就查字典。(Wǒ bù zhīdào zhège cí, nà jiù chá zìdiǎn.) |
| DAVID: Right. The first situation is implied here. But we have to say… |
| Amber: 就。(Jiù.) |
| DAVID: Before the second to communicate that they are related. We have a couple more examples for you to help make this clear. |
| Amber: 比如说 哪个不好，我就要这个。(Bǐrú shuō nǎge bù hǎo, wǒ jiù yào zhège.) |
| DAVID: You might say that while you are shopping, |
| Amber: 哪个不好，我就要这个。(Nǎge bù hǎo, wǒ jiù yào zhège.) |
| DAVID: Right. “That’s no good, and so I want this one”. And there, it also adds emphasis. It’s like this is the one that I want. |
| Amber: 对。(Duì.) |
| DAVID: Right. It’s adding emphasis, as well as connecting those two phrases. |
| Amber: 而且是因为之前的一个状况。(Érqiě shì yīn wéi zhīqián de yīgè zhuàngkuàng.) |
| DAVID: Yeah. It’s not really exactly the same as the English word “then” or “so that” but it’s quite close. |
| Amber: Yeah. |
| DAVID: Let’s take a look at another example. |
| Amber: 他不认识这个字，就查字典了。(Tā bù rènshì zhège zì, jiù chá zìdiǎnle.) |
| DAVID: Ok. Let’s hear that again. |
| Amber: 他不认识这个字，就查字典了。(Tā bù rènshì zhège zì, jiù chá zìdiǎnle.) |
| DAVID: He didn’t know this character and so he looked it up in the dictionary. |
| Amber: 他不认识这个字，就查字典了。(Tā bù rènshì zhège zì, jiù chá zìdiǎnle.) |
| DAVID: Right. He didn’t know the character and so looked it up in the dictionary. Let’s try this in reverse now. I’ll give the sentence and you try to translate before Amber does. If you don’t know the pinyin, count the number of strokes. |
| Amber: 不知道拼音，就查笔划吧！(Bù zhīdào pīnyīn, jiù chá bǐhuà ba!) |
| DAVID: If you don’t know the pinyin… |
| Amber: 不知道拼音。(Bù zhīdào pīnyīn.) |
| DAVID: Then check the number of strokes. |
| Amber: 就查笔划吧！(Jiù chá bǐhuà ba!) |
| DAVID: Right. And that’s an interesting case, because, there’s no if in that sentence. |
| Amber: 对，没有。(Duì, méiyǒu.) |
| DAVID: Yeah, because as we have 就, it makes sense though. We know the second situation is because of or a result of the first one. |
| Amber: 对，第二个情况是因为第一个已经出现了。(Duì, dì èr gè qíngkuàng shì yīnwèi dì yī gè yǐjīng chūxiànle.) |
| DAVID: Right. In this case, then... |
| Amber: 就查笔划吧！(Jiù chá bǐhuà ba!) |
| DAVID: Right. So our grammar point today is very simple. A simple conjunction. |
| Amber: 就。(Jiù.) |
| DAVID: This is close to the English word “then” or “so that”. Although it also adds some emphasis to the sentence. When you run into it, be aware that it is connecting two ideas. |
| Amber: 對，沒錯。(Duì, méicuò.) |
Outro |
| DAVID: For now though, that’s all the time we have. From Beijing, I’m David. |
| Amber: 我是安伯。(Wǒ shì ān bó.) |
| DAVID: Thanks for listening. And we’ll see you on the site. |
| -- |
Comments
Hide