URL
Lesson Introduction
Sure, we've all got our skeletons in the closet. It's just when someone opens the door that we get a little red in the face. In today's podcast, the boss makes a slightly uncomfortable discovery. Should you find yourself entangled in a little 'office scandal,' listen to this podcast to learn how to get yourself out of it! In Chinese!
Comments 
To comment, please login.
Comments Policy
Allowed comments do not necessarily represent the views of ChinesePod.com. We also reserve the right to reject personal attacks, false/unsubstantiated allegations, spamming of any kind, and comments that include vulgar language or libelous statements.
Out of consideration for our Newbie and Elementary users, English translations should be provided with any Chinese (characters or pinyin) written in Newbie and Elementary lesson discussion posts. New lesson idea? Please let us know on our contact page.
shiqiangdan says
August 24, 2008
Isn't the 吗 supposed to be 嘛? I could be completely off but in the back of my mind I think I remember seeing the latter instead of the former. Doesn't the sentence mean "are you dry?" as is? Heh. Great lesson!
Jordan
pcmi7 says
August 24, 2008
I've seen both 干吗 and 干嘛. Any explanations (Pasden?) for the etymology of this? It sounds like something that might have come from a non-Mandarin dialect. Perhaps the present characters are just a phonetic transcription of the original sounds? And is the progressive 在 necessary? I seem to recall seeing just 你干吗？
qingdaossadventuresdotcom says
August 24, 2008
For 尴尬 (awkward) in the supplementary vocabulary, can this be used to describe people, places and situations? Would really appreciate some examples. I enjoy adressing awkward silences/situations. 谢谢
john says
August 24, 2008
shiqiangdan and pcmi7,
干吗 (gànmá) and 干嘛 (gànmá) are both OK for this usage. According to our Chinese teachers, 干吗 (gànmá) is somewhat "more correct," but it's not a big deal.
amber says
August 24, 2008
hi qingdao,
Yes, you can use 尴尬 (gāngà) for people:
他很尴尬。
Tā hěn gāngà.
He feels very awkward.
and situations:
大家都不说话，很尴尬。
Dàjiā dōu bù shuōhuà, hěn gāngà.
No one is speaking, it's very awkward.
他不知道该怎么做，很尴尬。
Tā bùzhīdào gāi zěnme zuò, hěn gāngà.
He doesn't know what he should do, he feels very awkward.
It's not really used to describe places in Chinese.
johns says
August 24, 2008
Very useful lesson and expansion exercises. But I have to admit, the 老板 creeps me out!
lennier61 says
August 24, 2008
This lesson is too short and simple to be classified as elementary, it should be at newbie channel.
Besides that, quite good.
mikenotinjubei says
August 24, 2008
I sort of fit right in to this lesson. Not bad after a year. A question came to mind while using the expanision section.
What is the opposite of "mistake" I am puzzled with my own native (English) language. I do not know how to say the opposite without using a negative. example- I didn't make a mistake .
I found myself thinking about this reviewing the expanision section
(trad.) 錯 (simp) 错 cuò;
in the expanision you used as opposite
(trad.) 對 (simp) 对 duì
I understand but I usually think of 對 as correct. And "uncorrect" means wrong answer maybe not necessary wrong action.
Also how would you say . " Can you correct this mistake"
sophie20461 says
August 24, 2008
hi ember
“尴尬”可不可以用embarrassed？它和Awkward有什么区别？
sophie20461 says
August 24, 2008
sorry 我把你的名字写错了。 amber
henning says
August 24, 2008
Regarding the phrase:
我们错了
This is one of the current favourites of my 3year old:
amber says
August 25, 2008
hi mikenotinjubei,
你可以改正这个错误吗？
Nǐ kěyǐ gǎizhèng zhège cuòwù ma？
Can you correct this mistake?
Sorry... the other part... you kinda lost me in the correct/uncorrect discussion! not sure what you meant.
mikenotinjubei says
August 25, 2008
Amber
Sorry I lose myself all the time. Not so hard in Tokyo. One of the expansion sentences I guess I would have said
這個句子對不對
Without being redundant. Is this sentence ok as well?
amber says
August 25, 2008
hi mikenotinjubei,
Yes,
這個句子對不對?
Zhège jùzi duì bù duì?
is also correct!
leoguerrero says
August 25, 2008
Sometimes I get so frustrated with those traditional characters. It's already very hard with the simplified ones and then I figure that I also have to learn the traditional ones. : / We need to convince Taiwan to use the simplified characters too.
jennyzhu says
August 25, 2008
One more word for supplementary vocab:
亲热/qin1 re4/ to make out
他们在亲热/ta1 men zai4 qin1 re4/they are making out.
changye says
August 25, 2008
Caught in the Act
当场被捕 (dang1 chang3 bei4 bu3)
被当场抓住 (bei4 dang1 chang3 zhua1 zhu4)
culturedragon says
August 25, 2008
Actually, the 老板 has an attitude that I often encountered in China. Waitresses, ticket sellers, staff on the train could also talk in this tone of voice. But this was in the early nineties and the Chinese are much more friendly nowadays.
vaijaeyonth says
August 25, 2008
Hello Friends,
Here is new sheep on chinese mountains ....wanted to learn chinese before moving to Beijing for the software company establishments...anyone can guide me..my skype id :jp.vaijaeyonth
contact me ...
JP
jennyzhu says
August 25, 2008
culturedragon,
Yes, that's the planned economy attitude.
thomas24 says
August 25, 2008
LeoGuerro,
I am living and studying Chinese in Taiwan. I love the traditional characters! I know that's it's more difficult to learn to write, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
alexandermuir says
August 25, 2008
my boss walked in on me while i was listening to this lesson! guess i'll need to be more careful :)
tangweizhong says
August 25, 2008
I'm with thomas, 我們要維護繁體字！
Also, I've seen gànmá written as 干麼...maybe that's just the traditional/Taiwanese way to write it?
This is my first time posting, I've been lurking for quite a while though.
agentchuck says
August 25, 2008
So, was the original intent of this dialog to have caught the two miscreants in a somewhat more compromising situation?
I did find the boss's phrase 对不起 interesting because of how she used the tone of her voice. Because Chinese is already a tonal language, I don't know how to add inflections to words. It's complicated to still make the right tones, but to add an additional inflection to what you're saying. Can you do it in a similar way to English for incredulity, sarcasm, questioning, etc.?
licha says
August 25, 2008
Amber, thanks again for always including pinying&translation in your comments&answers. makes it worthwhile to read comments section.
lennier61, do us all(elies/newbies) a favor and go to intermediate lessons.
wjefferys says
August 25, 2008
@leoguerrero
When I first started learning Chinese (47 years ago!) we were amongst the first to be taught Chinese using a textbook from Mainland China that used pinyin and simplified characters. Recall that this was between the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, so it was quite a novelty. However, our professor encouraged us to learn both, and when I was making up flash cards (I still have them) I used two strategies:
To use the cards, I would look at the English and say the Chinese, and at the same time I would write the characters out with my finger. I learned early on that the "approved" method of writing a character with your finger to show someone else is to write it on the palm of your hand. This gave me practice in writing the character as well as correct stroke order, which is an advantage when you try to look up a character in a traditional dictionary using the radica/stroke method.
I found this method to be very efficient, as it uses four different skills simultaneously: Speaking, hearing, reading and the tactile sense of writing.
wjefferys says
August 25, 2008
别说了!
This is an interesting sentence because of its use of the marker '了'
Often, '了' gives the effect of a past tense, but not always and not (it seems to me) in this case. Here, the 老板 is telling his subordinates to stop doing something that they are in the process of doing. So it can't be a past tense marker, because they are still in the process of doing it. Rather, the boss is telling the subordinates to change what they are doing, to complete an action, to stop talking and be silent. This is a very important function of '了' as an aspect marker.
My understanding of why '了' often looks like a past tense marker is that very often an event that took place in the past has been completed by the time the speaker is talking about it. So the "change of state" has already taken place.
Take a look at the WikiPedia article on aspect for useful information.
barryb says
August 25, 2008
My mnemonic for the tones of 老板 - lǎobǎn - boss was to think of my ugly fat boss with his saggy man-boobs drooping like two tone threes. Ugh.
(The female boss in the picture looks like a big girl, but that's fine by me.)
light487 says
August 25, 2008
I was going to make the same comment as agentchuck:
"I did find the boss's phrase 对不起 interesting because of how she used the tone of her voice. Because Chinese is already a tonal language, I don't know how to add inflections to words. It's complicated to still make the right tones, but to add an additional inflection to what you're saying. Can you do it in a similar way to English for incredulity, sarcasm, questioning, etc.?"
As I am constantly trying to hit the right tones in this tonally complex language, I often find myself holding back on English-western type tones, such as the indignant tone used here by the lao-ban. I often accidentally make a western rising tone when forming a sentence..
It's not confusing by any means, I can certainly hear the Chinese tones, as well as the western tones but I am curious, as agentchuck is, on how to use this in my own language practise.. so I don't end up sounding like a robot repeating phrases.
wjefferys says
August 25, 2008
In connection with the discussion of simplified vs. traditional characters, it's worth noting that many "simplified" forms are the same as or related to commonly used cursive forms. Anyone who gets far in Chinese will want to learn something about cursive Chinese writing. Not only are many signs written using cursive forms, but menus and of course letters will often use them.
I know of two books that are useful in this regard. Of these, the most comprehensive is "Introduction to Chinese Cursive Script," by Fred Fang-yu Wang, who was a professor at Yale. Copies may still be available from Yale University's Far Eastern Publications (New Haven, CT, USA). I found several copies available at amazon.com, not too expensive.
The other is an amusing book, James D. McCawley's "The Eater's Guide to Chinese Characters." This is definitely available on amazon.com, also cheaply. It teaches you how to read a Chinese menu and contains a large number of eating-related words in a vocabulary taking more than half the book. Also, there are many examples of menus, many handwritten and some in various degrees of cursive (though not as cursive as in Wang's book).
jptyke says
August 25, 2008
Several people have said something like light47 -"I did find the boss's phrase 对不起 interesting because of how she used the tone of her voice. Because Chinese is already a tonal language, I don't know how to add inflections to words. It's complicated to still make the right tones, but to add an additional inflection to what you're saying. Can you do it in a similar way to English for incredulity, sarcasm, questioning, etc.?"
To me it sounds as if the voice in this case is pitched higher, and the final tone especially is exaggerated. Just listen and imitate. After that you can think about the rules.
Also: Thanks to
jennyzhu says
One more word for supplementary vocab:
亲热/qin1 re4/ to make out
他们在亲热/ta1 men zai4 qin1 re4/they are making out.
DeFrancis gives the meaning of 'qinre' as 'intimate, warm, affectionate', so presumably this is a euphemism.
changye says
August 25, 2008
Hi sophie20461,
Long time no see. Where have you been? As to "awkward" and "embarassed", they are often interchangeably used in the sense of 尴尬, but the former one has broader meaning, such as "difficult to deal with, 难对付，难处理", "not convenient, 不方便", "clumsy, not comfortable, 笨拙，别扭，不善于" etc., according to my 牛津英汉双解词典. My hunch tells me that "embarassed" might be a little more 严重 (serious, grave) than "awkward", although I'm not so sure.
calkins says
August 27, 2008
The 老板, if she was really feeling nasty, could have said 闭上嘴巴 bì shang zuǐ bā..."shut up". Literally "close mouth". But I guess that wouldn't be appropriate to say to your employees!
renny says
August 29, 2008
I see theres talk of traditional characters
Vs. simplfied, well i have a little trick for that when typing. also there Not really harder to learn its just that once you learn a simplified your use to it &
prefer it to be used/ see it All the time.
The "sqaures" will give people away when they paste & copy
sanp says
August 29, 2008
The woman in this lesson image is so 凶神恶煞!
tommyb says
September 1, 2008
对,照片 很 可怕!
heruilin says
September 20, 2008
Ah .. great lesson to get back into the swing of things after a six month time out.