Time to move on to lesson 3 of Chinesepod. I've actually listened ahead to a couple of the Chinesepod programmes, but until I catch up on the vocabulary and my own language work based on the programmes I don't feel I've quite mastered everything contained in each episode of Chinesepod. Tonight I'm going to be covering a couple of new things, including the verb 去 qù, and a few other bits and pieces. It's been a very busy week and because work is going to be really busy over the next three weeks, I'm not expecting to get an enormous amount done. But I do want to try to keep going with things!
Lesson 3 began by introducing the words 先生 xiān sheng, meaning "Mr" and 小姐 xiǎo jie, meaning "Miss". I suppose that makes me "Pentleton 先生", but there must be a more Chinese sounding name!
In fact, I've recently been sent an email from colleagues over at the Mandarin Gateway who have come up with a name for me. Lin suggested that it's easier to work with the first syllable of my second name (Pen) and identify a Chinese name based on that. Her suggestion has been 彭 peng. My understanding is that Chinese names normally follow the three character pattern. I suppose this could make my name 碰马克 peng ma kè. Lin also mentioned something about changing my first name, but I didn't fully understand so I'll get back to her and will post again another time about this. In the meantime, I can introduce myself as 彭先生 peng xiān sheng.
Another new and pretty useful phrase in this programme was 你呢 nì ne? It means, "and you?" and can be used to request the same information from someone else, eg. see the conversation below:
A: 你好吗？
B: 我很好。 你呢？
A: 我也很好。
A: Nǐ hǎo ma?
B: Wõ hěn hǎo. Nǐ ne?
A: Wǒ yě hěn hǎo.
A: How are you?
B: I'm fine. And you?
A: I'm also fine.
I managed to slip the word 也 yě in there. It means "also" or "too". Another example: 我也是美国人 wǒ yě shì měi guó rén: "I'm also American". Think it works this way anyway!
Next came the question 你去哪里 nǐ qù nǎ li? Word for word translation here gives 你 nǐ - you; 去 qù - go; 哪里 nǎ li - where.
The answer given in the third programme as an example is 我去学校wǒ qù xuéxiào, "I go to the school". The interesting thing here is that, if this is a typical structure, there's no preposition for "to the school". In the dictionary 学校 is given as "school", so the preposition must be in the verb. This is what I mean about things appearing very straightforward as I mentioned a couple of days ago.
So, trying to add to what I've already learned and use the new material in today's lesson, here is a made-up conversation based on what I've covered so far:
A: 你好吗？
B: 很好谢谢。你呢？
A: 我也很好。
B: 你是英国人？
A: 不是。我匙苏格兰人。
B: 我也是苏格兰人。你去哪里？
A: 我去学校。
B: 我也去学校。
A: Nǐ hǎo ma?
B: Hěn hǎo, xiè xie. Nǐ ne?
A: Wǒ yě hěn hǎo.
B: Nǐ shì yīng guó rén.
A: Bú shì. Wǒ shì sūgélán rén.
B: Wǒ yě shì sūgélán én. Nǐ qù nǎ li?
A: Wǒ qù xué xiào.
B: Wǒ yě qù xué xiào.
A: How are you?
B: Very well, thanks. And you?
A: I'm very well too.
B: Are you English?
A: No, I'm Scottish.
B: I'm also Scottish. Where are you going?
A: I'm going to the school.
B: I'm also going to the school.
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