Let me answer these two questions.

1) The possessive ‘de’ can be omitted before names of relatives, close friends, your country or something you want to emphasize that it is very close to you, e.g. your beloved car etc.

E.g. wo3 ba4ba4-my father, instead of wo3de ba4ba4.

wo3 peng2you3-my friend, instead of wo3de peng2you3

*Please note that it is not a mistake if you keep the ‘de’ there. It is just that you can omit it.

2)The ‘de’ used after shi4, e.g. shi4 de, or dui4 de, which means ‘yes, ‘right’, is a not a possessive ‘de’ and it’s used to stress the meaning of the word, it doesn’t carry any meaning by itself here.

This usage of ‘de’ you will mostly see in shi4 de and dui4 de, also hao3 de-good, ok, ke3yi3 de-fine, ok, will do…etc. It’s used to enhance the meaning and nothing more.

Hope this was clear.

Regards,

Serge

I’m confused. Why isn’t “de” used after “ta” in the 4th set of Situational Dialogue 1 for both A & B?

Similarly, why is “de” used after “shi” in part A of the 5th set of Situational Dialogue 1?

Xie xie!

xie xie ni

xie xie ni

I guess there is an explanation about this in the lesson transcript. Particle “ba” is used to indicate the possibility of something, when the person who is speaking is not very sure about something+it plays the same role as the question particle “ma”. So whenever you doubt about anything, or not sure about if it’s true or not, then it’s “ba” at the end of the question sentence.

Hope this answer was helpful.

Best,
Serge
—————————————————————
Learn Mandarin Chinese with Serge Melnyk
http://www.melnyks.com

Good question.
I started to learn Chinese when I was only 16! It took me 2 years of self-study to be able to work as an interpreter for a trade company in my town. I first went to China when I was 17, it was for 1 week only, and despite that many friends and colleagues told me that I would give up learning Chinese after my visit to China (well, you know, it was in 1989, in Harbin. At the time, people were still spitting under the table when they were eating in a five-star restaurant!), but I didn’t. I was even more challenged. So all depends on your own determination. Good Luck!
Zhu4 ni3 hao3 yun4!(祝你好運！)－it means good luck.

im only fifteen but i really want to learn how to speak chinese… ur podcast is very very helpful…. now i know basics of speaking chinese…. i just wanna ask how long may it take for me to master it??? xiexie

你好！
I am no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I would have to agree with the person from Taiwan who wrote “你的中文講得很棒很標準”. You take great care in pronouncing tones.

Thank you!

Mark

Best,
Serge

I am blown away at how easy Chinese can be to learn. Up until your podcast, I was throwing money at books, tapes and on line courses without anything to show for it. I am now on lesson 5 and trying to catch up! Are you planning a lesson involving the home with vocabulary describing items found in the house?

xie xie!

Keep up the great work,

Vincent