我是很忙 Wǒ shì hěn máng!** (see below)

That's the reason I've not been posting much over the past few days! My first Mandarin excuse! 我匙很忙 wǒ shì hěn máng means "I am very busy". I've learned this in the second lesson of Chinesepod, and this is what I'm going to concentrate on today. I've listened to the episode a few times - I'm finding that because there's no reference point it's really difficult to remember the words. Most of the other languages I've learned have in some way been interrelated and I can always link a word in Catalan to the Spanish equivalent or in German to the Norwegian word I know. I found the same last year when I began Japanese - you just need to know that the word means whatever it means and learn it.

The episode began with some practice of nationalities from the first lesson. The revision of nationalities and countries included the following words:

美国 - měi guó - America
英国 - yīng guó - England
法国 - fǎ guó - France
德国 - dé guó - Germany
中国 - zhōng guó - China

It appears then that the word 国 (guó) on its own means "country". There are apparently lots of countries which are formed with 国, though apparently not Scotland which is 苏格兰 (sūgélán).

In Japanese I remember being quite pleased to discover that to form a nationality all you need to do is add the particle 人 (jin) to the end of a country, for example 中国人 (chūgoku-jin), or スコットランド人 (skotturando-jin). In Chinese it's the same! And the Japanese kanji for jin - 人 - is none other than the Chinese character for rén 人！So this gives the following vocabulary:

美国人 - měi guó rén - American person
英国人 - yīng guó rén - English person
法国人 - fǎ guó rén - French person
德国人 - dé guó rén - German person
中国人 - zhōng guó rén - Chinese person
and...
苏格兰人 - sūgélán rén - Scottish person

This sentence, 他是美国人吗 (tā shì měi guó rén ma) is asking "Is he American?" Certainly in terms of pronunciation, tā shì měi guó rén ma could also mean "is SHE American", or indeed "is IT American". However, in this case the character tā would be written with a different character: 他 tā - "he"; 她 - tā - "she"; and 它 tā - "it".

The answer to the above question, given in the conversation on Chinesepod was 不是，他是英国人 (bú shì, tā shì yīng guó rén). From the previous lesson I guess that 不 (bú) is the negative particle when combined with a verb like 是（shì), but I did also read that 不 can mean a straightforward "no". I think I'll come back to 不 in another post because, having looked it up in the dictionary, I've discovered that there's something quite interesting about it tone-wise.

The new vocabulary introduced in lesson 2 included the word 忙 (máng). The question 他很忙吗 (tā hěn máng ma?) means "Is he busy?" Equally, given what I know already, I think you could ask the question: 你很忙吗？ (nǐ hěn máng ma?) "are you very busy?", or make the statement 我很忙 (wǒ hěn máng), "I'm very busy".

If 忙 (máng) means "busy", then another useful word which can be interchanged in sentences is "tired". This word is 累 (lèi). So, you could also ask the question 你很类吗？(nǐ hěn lèi ma?) "are you very tired?" or make the statement 我很类 (wǒ hěn lèi) "I'm very tired".

The final word included in today's lesson was 对 (duì), meaning "yes". So, in answer to the question 你很忙吗？ (nǐ hěn máng ma?) you could say 对我很忙 (duì, wǒ hěn máng). I'm not 100% sure about the whole 不 thing - perhaps you could equally answer: 不，我不很忙 (bú, wǒ bú hěn máng), meaning "No, I'm not very busy". Really not too sure about the 不 and where it goes or indeed how exactly it's used.

Onto some conversations based on this new language, and indeed on the previous stuff I've done.

Conversation

A: 你好吗？
B: 我很好，谢谢。你好吗？你忙吗？
A: 对。我很忙。我很类。

A: nǐ hǎo ma?
B: wǒ hěn hǎo, xiè xie. nǐ hǎo ma? nǐ máng ma?
A: duì. wǒ hěn mang. wǒ hěn lèi.

A: How are you?
B: I'm fine, thanks. How are you? Are you busy?
A: Yes. I'm very busy. I'm very tired.

Bit of a depressing conversation, but hey! I'm practising. I'm going to be doing some recording for work tomorrow, so if I get some spare time, I'll try putting together a quick recording of this stuff to see if someone out there is willing to correct my pronunciation!

That's all for now, so 明天见 (míng tiān jiàn) - until tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are the iPod-ready flashcards if you're interested: Download Archive.zip (236k)

Update
Many thanks to Matt who has pointed out that I shouldn't have written 我是很忙, rather 我很忙 at the beginning - and indeed in the title of this post. As he kindly explains in the comments, 很 acts as a connector in this sentence and the verb 是 isn't required. 谢谢，Matt!

Comments

[Ewan McIntosh]

This is so cool. Amazing how it all fits together.

[Matt Whyndham]

Actually, I don't think you should have 是 in the above sentences including Mang, and Lei. 很 functions as the connector in that case.

"Hen" doesn't always mean "very", sometimes it functions as a connector/generic stative verb.

You do always need 是 to describe your nationality, profession etc. It would be ungrammatical to say 我英国人。

[mpentleton]

Brilliant, thanks Matt. This is exactly how I'm hoping to learn!

So I'm guessing that 我很忙 is correct. If 很 acts as a connector, does that mean I couldn't say correctly 我忙？

Obviously I'm just getting the hang of this. Rather than correct the post, i'll update it with the corrections.

谢谢！

[Matt Whyndham]

我忙 sounds a bit neanderthal to me, but it might be appropriate within a dialog. Lots of grammar in Mandarin comes from adjacent sentences.

e.g. the Yes/No translation problem:

Most of the time to aggree/disagree to some assertion involving verb V, you'd simply say "V" or "不 V".

It would be incorrect to say "对" in that case, and "不" for no is a basic error.

[Alex]

Hi Mark,

I too am a beginer,I am impressed with the flashcards - more please! I do have one minor gripe: the distortion in your computer generated speach obscures the clarity of the sound. Is it at all possible to have someone else (human)to respond in the conversation?

Many thanks.

[mpentleton]

Matt - thanks again.

Alex - the pitch shift on the recording was just a bit of fun and it didn't really work. One of my own students (not of Chinese) does a great impression of this recording, much to the amusement of his friends! I'll see what I can do about making the podcast more interesting with someone else helping out!

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