Lesson 008. Let’s talk about hobbies.

What’s your hobby? What do you like to do? Find out about your special hobby and how to call it in Mandarin Chinese.
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6 Comments

  • Anonymous says:
    February 23, 2006 at 11:03 pm

    Hello Serge,

    I’ve been listening to your lessons from podcast and enjoying them. Today I first came to this website and got to know you were from Vancouver. I can tell you that the picture of you is on Granville Island,right?
    I got back from Vancouver last month.

    Thank you for providing such nice lessons for us.

    From Japanese girl

  • Serge Melnyk says:
    February 23, 2006 at 11:05 pm

    That’s right! It is Granville Island:-)

  • jervis_burnaby says:
    February 25, 2006 at 3:43 pm

    Where you took a photo is also my favorite place. I sometimes went there to take a walk in summer.

    I’ve been listening to your lessons for keeping my skills of Chinese and English. It’s very useful. Thanks, again.

  • Serge Melnyk says:
    February 25, 2006 at 8:13 pm

    Thank You very much!

  • Dave Hughes says:
    September 18, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    Nihao, Serge.

    I have just finished lesson 8. I have some grammar questions. The Chinese language does not involve genders, correct?

    In later lessons, will you teach past and future tenses?

    Lastly, how would you say librarian? I bet it is somewhere in your lessons. Could you tell me which one?

    I am really enjoying this. The spoken language is not as hard as I imagined.
    Thanks.

    Dave
    Sent by Mr. Hughes via BlackBerry by AT&T

  • Serge Melnyk says:
    September 18, 2011 at 10:22 pm

    Dear Dave,

    Let me answer your questions in order:

    1) Correct. There are no genders. Chinese is an amorphous language. There are no changes in words, tenses, etc, in the usual way that we are used to with the European languages.

    2) Yes, there will be notes about how different time situations can be expressed in Mandarin. But, as I mentioned, there are no tenses as we understand them.
    So, you need to guess from the context whether something is in present, future or past. E.g. wo3 chi1fan4-I eat. This can also mean I am eating.
    If you say zuo2tian1 wo3 chi1fan4-Yesterday I eat–this will mean I ate yesterday, etc. In this example, we can tell it’s in the past because there is the word zuo2tian1-yesterday.

    Generally speaking, tenses in Mandarin are expressed by using the so-called language markers- particles that are placed before or after the verb.

    guo2 is placed after the verb: wo chi1 guo4 (fan4)- I ate.
    yao4 or hui4—”will”, “going to”. E.g. Wo3 yao4 chi1fan4–I will eat.

    These are the major 3 particles for tenses. There is also a particle ‘le’ that can indicate past tense, but more often, it indicates the change in the situation.

    E.g. ta1 lai2-he comes or he is coming. Ta1 lai2 le!–He came!–(he already came. The situation has changed from “not seeing him” to “seeing him”)

    3) Don’t want to disappoint you :) , but there is no single word for “librarian”, unlike other professions. Library is tu2shu1guan3(literally, tu2-maps, shu1-books, guan3-establishment). Librarian is tu2shu1 guan3li3yuan2. Tu2shu1- “maps and books”, guan3li3yuan2-administrator. (don’t forget that guan3li3yuan2 is pronounced as guan2li3yuan2–there are two 3rd tones together, the first one will always change to the 2nd tone)

    In lesson 65 PDF, there are many notes about grammar. Actually the whole PDF is explaining the most common grammar constructions in Mandarin.

    Hope this helps.

    Best,

    Serge

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