Lesson 004 Revision of Basic Knowledge of Chinese

M: 大家好！Is everybody ok? Dajia hao. Huanying, Welcome to LCN. Wo shi ML, I'm ML, wo shi ML.
S: Wo shi Stuart. OK, today's revision time.
M: We'll go over what we learned in the past week
S: Standard Chinese, or Putonghua. Has four tones, different tone, different meaning. They are...
M: 1,2,3,4.
S: Flat, up, down and up, down.
M: And lots of compound words, like electric shadow 电影, meaning movie, or electric vehicle 电车, meaning tramcar or trolleybus.
S: We write the sounds in pinyin. XIAO, for example, is how we write the sound xiao. The X is pronounced 西. And don't forget, repeat EVERYTHING we say in Chinese. Try to say it with us.
M: And use active listening and speaking - imagine what's happening. For example, Angry! 生气, be angry when you say it. I'm very angry 我很生气!
S: Or 我很累。Wo hen lei. I'm very tired.
M: Ok, that's a quick recovery, Stuart. What else did we learn?
S: 你好! How are you？ 欢迎你到中国来, welcome to China. And 谢谢. Thanks.
M: Huanying HUANYING，is welcome. Huanying ni，welcome you. Huanying ni dao zhongguo lai. DAO Dào , to arrive, or reach.
S: And 中国, zhong ZHONG zhong is middle. guó GUO Guó,  is country, or kingdom, so zhongguo, Middle Kingdom, China.
M: And lái LAI lái, to come. Welcome to China 欢迎你到中国来. Say it everybody. Huanying ni dao zhongguo lai. Huanying ni dao zhongguo lai.
S: And 谢谢。xiexie XIEXIE, which means thanks. Say xiexie, everybody. Xiexie.
M: 很好。Very good. Hen hao.
M: 欢迎，welcome, back to LCN.
S: Now ML will welcome me to some different cities. Try to pick out the city, and repeat everything.
M: 欢迎你到 (pause) 北京 来. Huanying ni dao Beijing lai.
S: Got it? Right. Northern capital, Beijing. Another.
M: 欢迎你到 南京 来, huanying ni dao nanjing lai.
S: Good. Nanjing, southern capital. Nanjing.
M: One more. 欢迎你到 西安 来. Huanying ni dao xi'an lai.
S: Welcome to Xian, wher the terracotta army is.
M: Still one more. 欢迎你到 广州 来. Hear it? Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong province, once known as Canton.
S: And time's almost up, so let's finish with a little tone practice. You guys at home, mimic us out loud. Louder the better. Let's try ai AI AI ai. ML?
M: āi ái ǎi ài. Again, āi ái ǎi ài. 很好，very good. 很好。
S: Now for hao, HAO, hāo, háo, hǎo, hào.
M: Everyone. hāo, háo, hǎo, hào.
S: hen hao. And remember, distinguishing between similar sounds in a language is important. So try to hear the difference between JIN and JING. ML, over to you.
M: Ok. JIN, jin, and JING, jing. First JIN, then JING. Jin, jing. Again. Jin, jing. Hear it? The ING is nasal, not ‘in' but ‘ing'. Everyone try it. jin, jing.
S: jin, jing. Ah, that's the difference between Tianjin and Beijing.
M: 非常好。Very very good. Just the way to end our lesson. So, until next time, zaijian.
S: Zai jian.