Yajie: 早上好 everybody. Welcome to Chinese Studio. I'm Yajie.
Cam: Zao shang hao… it's time to perfect Chinese in only 5 minutes a day.
Yajie: Last time we talked about weather. Today we'll continue with the topic and learn an important word -- “比”.
Cam:  Doesn't that mean pen?
Yajie:  No no… listen carefully to Key Words of the Day!

***************Key words of the day
Today we’ll learn more expressions about weather. 比 means than,for example - 今天比昨天热。Today's hotter than yesterday. 热, hot. 冷, cold. 凉快, cool. All in today’s Chinese Studio.
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Yajie: 热, hot. R-e, the fourth tone.
Cam: 热 (rè).
Yajie: 比is similar to the English word “than”.
Cam: 比 (bǐ).
Yajie:今天比昨天热. Today is hotter than yesterday.
Cam: 今天比昨天热. (jīntiān bǐ zuótiān rè).
Yajie: 今天(jīntiān). Today.
Cam: 今天(jīntiān).
Yajie: 昨天 (zuótiān).
Cam: 昨天 (zuótiān).
Yajie: Tomorrow is 明天.
Cam: 明天(míngtiān).  Sometimes at the end of our show, we'll say mingtian jian, which means see you tomorrow.
Yajie: Very good.  So together yesterday, today and tomorrow is昨天 (zuótiān), 今天(jīntiān), 明天(míngtiān).
Cam: 昨天 (zuótiān), 今天(jīntiān), 明天(míngtiān).　

Conversations (1)

Yajie: Cam, last time we learned how to say “today's high is 30 degrees” in Chinese. How about that?
Cam: It's 今天最高气温三十度。(jīntiān zuìgāo qìwèn sānshí dù.)
Yajie: Right. And if it was 28 degrees yesterday, which was a little bit lower than today, then you can use比 to make a sentence. The sentence could go like this: 今天比昨天热. (jīntiān bǐ zuótiān rè). Today is hotter than yesterday.
Cam: 今天比昨天热. (jīntiān bǐ zuótiān rè). By the way what's the opposite of 热(rè)?
Yajie: It’s 冷 (lěng), cold.
Cam: 冷 (lěng).
Yajie: 冷, l-ě-n-g, the third tone.
Cam: 冷 (lěng).
Yajie: There is a phrase -- 越来越, which means becoming more and more….For example,天儿越来越冷了.(Tianr yuelaiyue leng le), which means It's becoming colder and colder.
Yajie: And in winter the weather in the northern part of China is colder than that of the south.

Conversations (2)

Cam: Then how do you say it's cooler than yesterday?
Yajie: Good question. Cool in Chinese is 凉快.
Cam: 凉快(liángkuai). 凉快(liángkuai) is normally used to describe the weather in autumn, right?
Yajie: Right.You could say 这儿的秋天真凉快！It's cool here in autumn.
Cam: 这儿的秋天真凉快！(zhèr de qiūtiān zhēn liángkuai).

Conversations (3)

***************Key words reminder
Today we learned more expressions about weather. 今天比昨天热。Today's hotter than yesterday. 天儿越来越冷了. It's becoming colder and colder. 这儿的秋天真凉快！It's cool here in autumn.