Why is it that despite the enormous variety in our personal experiences, we all end up having exactly the same conversation with cab drivers? You know the drill. Where are you from? Are you used to eating Chinese food? Can you use chopsticks? Like Chinese water torture, the deadening repetition invites psychological defense mechanisms just to cope, like inventing new personal histories for each encounter.But then, just when you're about to lose faith in humanity, you run into a cabbie who is interesting, quick on his feet, and brutally honest. Our Elementary lesson for today is about exactly this situation. Like a bracing dash of cold water, it refreshes and re-motivates. Give it a listen and see if it rings true for you too.
jyh
said on November 27, 2009
You guys are so cruel! :-)
To make such a lesson about some of the worst fears in all of us poor students of the language! I have only been studying for nearly a year and a half, so I feel that I am still due about half a year of absurd praise from Chinese cab drivers before I have to start answering tough questions as in this lesson.
A few questions now:
1) can you please expand on the tone on the second 好 in hăohāo? I can't hear it in the recording.
2) On the position of hái in "nĭ de Zhōngwén zĕnme hái zhème zāogāo"
If I wanted to say "how come you're still in China?", would that be
你怎麼還在中國嗎？
3）I didn't quite get from the podcast the conclusion of the exchange between David and Brandon regarding "for a good while" in "你還是得好好地去學習一下". Is that connotation there in the sentence or not? What added meaning does "一下" provide here?
barrister
said on November 27, 2009
@jyh - I'll take a stab at these. (1) I think the second 好 becomes the neutral/unstressed tone. This is the same as with other words made from doubled characters including 姐姐 or 狗狗. (2) I think you should omit the 吗 since it isn't a yes/no question and 怎么 is already a question word. (3) 一下 is a verb complement that adds the meaning of "for a little while" to whichever verb precedes it. My impression is that 一下 is shorter than 一会儿, but I'm not sure on that point.
Echo
said on November 27, 2009
@jyh,(1)Double 好 is to soften the intonation of the sentence and also to balance the syllables(because 学习 has two syllables).(2)Just like barrister said, the sentence would be correct when you drop 吗.(3)一下 is used to soften the intonation of the sentence too. For example, 你去一下 sounds like an order if we drop 一下, so people add 一下 to soften their tones.--Echoecho@popupchinese.com
jyh
said on November 27, 2009
@barrister - Thanks. (1) In the transcript the second 好 is written as hāo. This is one of the things that I was confused about. The second thing was the meaning/purpose of the double 好, which Echo explained in her reply.(2) Oops, the 嗎 was a leftover from a hasty/lazy cut-paste-edit.@Echo - At this point I have no ear at all for intonation in the language. I still want all elements of the sentence to have an explicit meaning. Does 一下 have an effect similar to that of adding "a bit" in english, as in "go study a bit" instead of "go study"? @Brendan - Sorry for misspelling your name. I had a guy in my lab with the other spelling.
trevelyan
said on November 28, 2009
@barrister, @jyh - hey guys. I think you can use either the first tone or neutral tone on the second 好. I'll check with Echo. We should have the transcript correspond to whatever is used in the recording....
Echo
said on November 28, 2009
@jyh,
Yeah, you are right, it's just like adding "a bit".And that's why it softens the intonation too, because saying "go study a bit" sounds less harsh than "go study" in Chinese.
The second 好 should be the first tone. Like in other doubled structures, 快快、慢慢... It is like an order. We can only use the neutral tone with nouns like 狗狗、妈妈、奶奶...
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
jyh
said on April 25, 2010
Moving up in my second pass of all the elementary-level podcasts, I am back to this one, 5 months later, still on the same sentence, but with different questions :-)
你还是得好好地去学习一下
1) I believe that 还是 has the meaning of "still" in that sentence. Right? I also think that 还 would have worked too, but 还是 was used instead because...? (a) one of those "it balances/sounds better" that I assume I will eventually start hearing some day; (b) just 'cause.
2) I am bothered by the word ordering. If I had to write that one on my own, I would probably say 你还是得去好好地学习一下 because in that form it looks more like "you must go [do stuff]", the [do stuff] here being "study well". Is that ordering correct in Chinese too? If yes, does it carry the same meaning as the one in the dialog.
jyh
said on April 25, 2010
One more question: When David mentions the cab drivers would would greet customers "nì hào", would that actually mean anything funny? I mean none of the combinations of nì and hào characters that I can find strike me as particularly funny. We are not in 草泥马 territory here, are we?
trevelyan
said on April 25, 2010
@jyh,
No special meaning behind it. I think they're just used to foreigners butchering the tones and when they slow things down to make themselves understood put everything into the fourth tone by way of emphasis. Have run into this a few times with cabbies. Be curious if anyone else has noticed this actually.
--dave
jyh
said on April 26, 2010
@trevelyan - Oh, so it's just the Chinese equivalent of [some] English and American people simply talking louder to non-native-speakers of English, then. :-)
Echo
said on April 26, 2010
@jyh,
In this sentence, both 还 or 还是 would work. You can just simply understand 还是 as 还 + 是. I think that will make things easier.
You can say 你还是得去好好地学习一下 too. The reason is : 好好 here is the coverb of 学习, so no matter where you put 去, it won't change the meaning of the sentence.
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
jyh
said on April 26, 2010
@Echo - Thank you. Re. 好好, I am going to refrain from asking the dumb question that immediately came to my mind, do some reading on coverbs, and come back with a question on the site if it still does not make sense.
