Newbie - Are You Tired?

Interesting character. It seems that many of the words built around lei4 have to do with accumulating one burden after another. That would make anyone tired!

你今天很累吗？ 对。 为什么？ 因为我今天很忙。 are you tired today? yes. oh,why? because i'm very busy today.

I found that my PC was out of order this morning, and just spent the whole day recovering it, which cost me more than 500 yuan! I’m deadly tired! 我累死了! (wo3 lei4 si3 le)

After climbing 5 sets of 16 steps to the fifth floor when staying with my friends, I asked them "lei bu lei?", between deep breaths. They took it that It was a little too much for me, so on subsequent outings they made me rest half way up before entering their apartment. Guess they were worrying a bit about my triple bypass op. the previous February, hehe. But I did appreciate their kindness and care.

@changye: I love the 死了 (sǐ le) construction. This is the first time I've seen it on ChinesePod. 冻死了 (dòng sǐ le) Freezing to death. 困死了 (kùn sǐ le) Sleepy to death. 无聊死了 (wú liáo sǐ le) Bored to death. 想死你了 (xiǎng sǐ nǐ le) Miss you to death. 橙死了 (chēng sǐ le) Full to death. 渴死了 (kě sǐ le) Thirsty to death.

HI billgloveruk, 我高兴死了! wo3 gao1 xing4 si3 le. I am extraordinarily pleased! Let me correct your typo! 撑死了 (chēng sǐ le) Full to death.

你今天很累吗？ 马马虎虎

Thanks Chinesepod for another great newbie lesson. I'm starting to get the hang of this - hěn hǎo!

死了can also be used in positive context, like 高兴死了/gao1 xing4 si3 le/happy to death, 漂亮死了/piao4 liang si3 le/pretty to death.

My mother-in-law often told me: 美死你! It took me a while to grasp the meaning of that one and it goes beyond my ability to properly translate it. ;)

Pinyin: měisǐnǐ (Beautiful to death)

Did you mean to use the expression "get busy"? It's usually reserved for a rather more slangy expression for going to bed.

I couldn't stop yawning during the lesson :D

Jenny, what's the name of the book you mentioned? 一一万个为什么?

一万个为什么 even

Henning, Some things are best untranslated. They convey feelings and, for example, the look in your mother-in-laws eyes. Needless to say she looked upon you very favorably (-: Bill

Hi I can't get this podcast to go past 3:58. Is it something I've done? Help

今天很忙，所以 xian 在我很累。Jin1tian1 hen3 mang2, suo3yi3 xian2zai4, wo3 hen3 lei2. I had trouble finding xian2zai4 in my IME! How do you say, "I got tired of looking."

weebop

FOOTBALL!? are read for you y some Music is like candy. You need to get rid of the rappers.

hi architpol, I got tired of looking: 我找累了。 Wǒ zhǎo lèi le.

After all of that yawning, there was no mention of the Chinese word for yawn. I actually had to look it up in my dictionary even though I was 很累 (hěn lèi). yawn = 哈欠 (hāqiàn) to yawn = 打哈欠 (dǎhāqiàn)

cjd60, Occasionally a podcast doesn't download completely. Try to download the lesson podcast again to see if you get the whole thing this time.

As I hear it, the n at the end of hen is not pronounced if the next word begins with l, m, or n. It sounds like helei ma and hemung. In other contexts, the word for 'very' sounds more like hen or hung.

It probably sounds that way to me because in Mandarin adverbs + the noun or verb it modifies are pronounced as one word. I mean that is the phrasing, you never have a pause between them; they run together.

What would the equivalent to 'drop dead gorgeous'? 可爱死了?

hi bazza, You could say any of these: 漂亮死了 Piàoliang sǐ le 漂亮得不得了 Piàoliang de bùdéliǎo 超漂亮 Chāo piàoliang

I heard a song called "死了都要愛“。 It means "dead（dead as in verb past tense of to die) all wants to love"? What could be a more proper translation of 死了都要愛？

hi hitokiri6993, It depends on the context, but i think it might mean: 死了都要愛 (Sǐ le dōu yào ài) Even if it kills me, I will still love.

That's cool.:) 太酷了。 Thanks Amber!

This is my first "Paid Subscriber" lesson! :) wooot! :)

Well.. that was a really good lesson. I laughed a few times, which is always good. I got an overall average 90% on the exercises. I made some more connections in my internal-dialogue neural network of how everything pieces together.. Still extremely overwhelmed by the Chinese Characters, so I have to stay within the realms of pinyin for now.. Not sure how I will ever overcome that hurdle.. May be the fact that the expansion section forces me to hover my mouse over the characters to see the pinyin will slowly train me in seeing the pinyin that underlies the Characters... only time will tell. My only suggestion would be to have the opening dialogue at 3 speeds.. one nice and slow, one a at medium speed where associated particles are sounded closer together and once where everything is said at fluent speech speed. It seemed like everything was at medium to fast speed.

我很累！！！！！！！！

我是一个小鸟

What's the difference between the word "困 kun4" and the word "累lei4"? Which word is more frequently heard?

Hello andrewm. Both words mean "tired", but 困 (kun4) generally connotes sleepiness as well. I hear 累 being used a lot more. Btw, 困 is frequently joined to other characters to form word compounds, in which case it conveys a different meaning: to be stranded, hard-pressed, or surrounded.

Thank you auntie68. The subtle differences of some Chinese words can be so confusing. Sometimes, I'm not always sure that I saying the right word at the right time. In this lesson, I guess the yawning threw me off. Since the word "tired" can be use for both fatigued and/or sleepiness it seems that the use of the word "困 kun4" is more similar to the use of the English word "tired". Whereas "累lei4" is specifically used when your exhausted, fatigued or worn-out and not sleepy.

light487, You might try learning one or two characters a day, both writing and reading it so that after you know enough to speak fluently, then you can read many characters also.

我可说一些中勾但是不许多 Unfortunately I had to look up a lot of that.. I typed about 10% of that without assistance.. I even got stuck on the word for "can".. which is really frustrating me at the moment.. the simple little constructions of "I like this" or "I want that" or "I can do that" or "I have this" etc.. Very frustrating..

积少成多 水滴石穿 我学英文就感觉很头疼 你们学中文估计也一样 但是坚持就是胜利 Success Belongs to the Persevering!

mystic,

I think they are pretty much different ways of saying the same thing.My understanding is that zhong means middle and refers to China and originates from ancient time when the Chinese considered themselves the centre of the world.Wen refers to language [or culture].Han refers to the Han Chinese race and yu to language ,so Hanyu refers to the language of the Han Chinese race which is of course Zhongwen.So I don't think there really is a difference essentially but I'd be very happy if someone pointed out one I'm not aware of.

累死 it's mean lazy,maybe,hehehe, because dilligent people never 累