Communicate in Chinese 交际汉语 Lesson 5: Date

会话 A
（在教室里）
李红：小江，看 什么呢？
小江：李老师，您好。我在看 春节是哪天。
李红：让我看看。今年的春节是2月1日。
小江：2月1日 是星期几啊？
李红：2月1日是星期六。
小江：那春节放几天假呢？
李红：7天，从2月1日到2月7日。
小江：真不错！可是，李老师，2月8日是星期六啊？星期六还上课吗？
李红：是的，周末也要上课。
Translation:
(In the classroom.)
Li Hong: Xiao Jiang, what are you looking at?
Xiao Jiang: Hello, Teacher Li. I'm having a look at which day the Spring Festival is.
Li Hong: Let me see. This year the Spring Festival is on February 1st.
Xiao Jiang: 1st of February? What day is that?
Li Hong: 1st of February is Saturday.
Xiao Jiang: Then how many days of holiday do we get for the Spring Festival?
Li Hong: 7 days, from the 1st of February to the 7th of February.
Xiao Jiang: That's really good! But, Teacher Li, the 8th of February is a Saturday! Do we have
classes on the Saturday?
Li Hong: Yes, there'll be classes on the weekend.
会话 B
（在校园里。）
甲：小江，你要去哪(儿)？
小江：我要去买个箱子。我下周五回国。
甲：你回国呆多长时间？
小江：我要呆三个星期。你什么时候回国去？
甲：我5月20号回国。
小江：5月20号？那不是下周五吗？
甲：噢，对啦，我都糊涂了。我们可以一起“打的”去机场。
小江：太好了！
Translation:
(In the school grounds.)
A : Xiao Jiang, where are you going?
Xiao Jiang: I'm going to buy a suitcase. I'm going back to my home country next Friday.
A : How long are you staying in your home country?
Xiao Jiang: I'm going to stay for three weeks. When are you going back?
A : I'm going back on May 20th.
Xiao Jiang: May 20th? Isn't that next Friday?
A : Oh, that's right, I'm all muddled. We can share a taxi to the airport.
Xiao Jiang: That's great!
Cultural Background
Chinese festivals
The Spring Festival is the largest and most popular traditional festival celebrated in China. For the Spring Festival celebrations，there is new year food shopping to be done，markets to browse, and every family gets together for the important new year's eve meal of dumplings. Relatives and friends visit each other to offer new year greetings, the best things to say are lucky ones such as "Happy New Year!" "Happy the Spring Festival!" New Year also means new clothes, especially to children, who usually have the most fun. Adults also give children or their younger generations lucky red packets with money inside. In rural areas of China, the Spring Festival also means every family lights firecrackers, puts out auspicious couplets on their doors and lucky paper-cuts on windows, everywhere you'll see colorful decorations and bright lanterns, adding to the atmosphere of happiness.
China has festivals in almost every month of the year. The major festivals are:
New Year's Day — 1st of January
the Spring Festival — 1st of the 1st month in the lunar calendar
Lantern Festival — 15th of the 1st month in the lunar calendar
Women's Day — 8th of March
Labor Day — 1st of May
Dragon Boat Festival — 5th of the fifth month in the lunar calendar
Children's Day — 1st of June
Mid-Autumn Festival — 15th of the eighth month in the lunar calendar
Chongyang Festival — 9th of the ninth month in the lunar calendar
National Day — 1st of October
In addition, there is the 1st of July — the birthday for the Communist Party of China, the 1st of August－Army Day, and the 10th of September — Teacher's Day, etc. While the international calendar takes one year as being the time it takes for the earth to revolve around the Sun (365.24219 days)， normal years have 365 days，leap years have 366 days and each year has twelve months. The lunar calendar is a legacy of the past, its history dates back to the Xia Dynasty, which is why it is also called the Xia calendar, people also call it Nong (rural) calendar for its use in agriculture. With more than 4000 years' of history, the lunar calendar is the opposite of the international calendar, it takes the amount of time the Moon revolves around the earth (29.3059 days) as one month, normal months have 29 days and leap months have 30 days，twelve months make one year and each year has 354 or 355 days, on average it has 11 days less per year than the international calendar. The international calendar and the lunar calendar are both used in China with all traditional festivals celebrated according to the dates in the lunar calendar.
Language Points
1、The "是" sentence — where the verb "是" forms the predicate with other words or phrases, we call them "是" sentences in Chinese, the addition of the adverb "不" in front of "是" negates the "是" sentence.
2、To express year, month, day and week in Chinese.
a．To read the year, read out in order each number that makes up the year. For example:
year 1997, year 2000, year 2003.
b．The 12 months in the year are read by adding "month" to the numbers one to twelve. For example: 一月, January; 五月, May; 十月, October; 十二月, December.
c．Days are read in the same way as months. Add "日" or "号" after the number. ("日" is usually used in written language; while "号" is more often used in spoken language.) For example: 1月1日, first of January; 5月1日, first of May; 2月6号(spoken), sixth of February, etc.
d．The day of the week is said by adding a number to "星期". For example: 星期一 Monday , 星期二Tuesday , 星期三 Wednesday, 星期四Thursday, 星期五Friday, 星期六Saturday. Sometimes it's also referred to as 周一, 周二, 周三, 周四, 周五, 周六, 周日and so on; Sundays can be called "星期日", "星期天", or "礼拜天".
e．The proper sequence for expressing date should be: year, month, day and week, for example, 2003 年1 月1 日星期三. "在" — aspectual adverb. Means that the action is still proceeding.
3、"要" — auxiliary verb. Means intention and wish. "什么时候回国去?" — "When are you going back?", in which the" 去" is a directional verb , used after other verbs to represent the direction or inclination of the action, indicates that in doing something, the direction of the movement or action is away from the speaker. For example, "I'm going to buy something." "He is going to school."
4、"多少" is given to mean uncertain numbers or quantities. Questions such as "Stay how long? How many days?" express length of time, measurement units after the" 多少" can be left out.
Substitutional Drills
1、我在看……
我在看书。
我在看电影。
我在看话剧。
我在看热闹。
我在看风景。
2、我要去买……
我要去买箱子。
我要去买方便面。
我要去买机票。
我要去买玩具。
我要去买书。
3、星期……
星期一
星期三
星期五
星期六
星期天(星期日)
4、那不是……
那不是下周三吗？
那不是下星期一吗？
那不是明天吗？
那不是后天吗？
5、呆(多长时间)……
我要在家呆两周。
我要在家呆五天。
我要在家呆三个星期。
我要在家呆半年。