Learn a few “store” related Chinese words and read humor in Chinese [Beginner]

The path of building vocabulary in Chinese is not an easy one. You should not only be able to learn new ones in a steady pace, but also be able to repeat them in your memory on a regular basis. based on my own experience on language learning, the best way of recalling a newly learned word is to recall wher it was learned from. Jokes and humor are good “containers” of new words since they are usually easier to remember than example sentences that came from nowher.

Today we’ll learn a few “store” related Chinese words and then enjoy a short humor story that contains the new words we learned. Since there are only basic sentence patterns in the humor I’m not expecting any challenges for beginners in terms of grammar. See if it can help you to understand and memorize those new words better.

In China, store is generally called “商店 shāngdiàn“. Stores give small gifts away to attract customers. “Giving things away” can be called “发送 fāsòng” in Chinese. “To receive” can be called “领 lǐng“. The employee that works in the store can be called “店员 diànyuán“, such as salesclerk, cashier etc.

Since it’s Beginner level reading material, I strongly suggest you to read through the whole text without look up first. If you can understand everything, that’s wonderful. If you can get the gist of it, not bad. If it’s really difficult for you, then go ahead look them up.

It all started when 气球 qìqiú (balloons) are being given away freely in a store …
商店     商店     shang1 dian4     store; shop
店员     店員     dian4 yuan2     shop assistant; salesclerk
发送     發送     fa1 song4     to hand out; to dispatch
领     領     ling3     to receive
气球     氣球     qi4 qiu2     balloon

 

[simplified Chinese]

商店里发送气球。

一个男孩想要两个气球。

店员说：“对不起，我们只给每个孩子一个气球。你有弟弟吗？”

男孩想了一想, 说：“我没有弟弟。但是我姐姐有个弟弟，我想给他领一个。”

 

[traditional Chinese]

商店裏發送氣球。

一個男孩想要兩個氣球。

店員說：“對不起，我們只給每個孩子一個氣球。你有弟弟嗎？”

男孩想了一想, 說：“我沒有弟弟。但是我姐姐有個弟弟，我想給他領一個。”

 

[pinyin]

shāngdiàn lǐ fāsòng qìqiú。

yī gè nánhái xiǎngyào liǎng gè qìqiú。

diànyuán shuō：“ duìbuqǐ， wǒmen zhǐ gěi měi gè háizi yī gè qìqiú。 nǐ yǒu dìdi ma？”

nánhái xiǎng le yī xiǎng, shuō：“ wǒ méiyǒu dìdi。 dànshì wǒ jiějie yǒu gè dìdi， wǒ xiǎng gěi tā lǐng yī gè。”

 

[English translation]

The store was sending out balloons.

A boy wanted to get two balloons.

The salesclerk said to him:”Sorry, we only give one balloon to one child. Do you have a brother?”

The boy thought for a moment and said:”I don’t have brothers. But my sister have one, I want to get one for him too.”