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You see him stealing, you yell at people to draw attention, but all you can say is “bu hao ren,” which could make you come across a bit judgmental. So, the sooner you can shout “thief”, the sooner you can go back home a hero. Listen to this podcast and learn how to make your Mandarin Chinese come to the rescue.
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Supplementary vocab for this lesson: 贼 (zéi) thief 警察 (jǐngchá) police 报警 (bàojǐng) report to the police, give an alarm 抢东西 (qiǎng dōngxi) steal/rob something 追 (zhuī) chase; pursue 保管 (bǎoguǎn) take care of 钱包 (qiánbāo) purse, wallet 我的手机被偷了。 (Wǒde shǒujī bèi tōu le.) My cell phone was stolen.
Dramatic!! good lesson. Hmm... is there a specific word for a pick-pocket? "Watch out for pick pockets!"
Hi Brendon, The word for a pickpocket is 扒手 (páshǒu). 小心扒手。(xiǎoxīn páshǒu.) “Watch out for pick pockets” ~amber :D
Great lesson. Thanks!
CPod HQ and Poddies Since it is Friday and perhaps you have heard that a (fool) congressman in New York wants to pass a law prohibiting the wearing of i-Pods while crossing the street we should be careful with this lesson. Dave in Taiwan and others in China or Chinatown maybe we should not repeat this lesson out loud after Jenny. I can see myself in Jubei or in Taipei saying A: 來人啊！有小偷！ Lái rén a! Yǒu xiǎotōu! Somebody come their's a thief B: 站住！別跑！我們看見你偷東西了！ Zhànzhù! Bié pǎo! Wǒmen kànjian nǐ tōu dōngxi le! Stop! Don't run! help us catch a thief............ Unless CPod gives me the words for : I need a lawyer or It was an honest mistake Happy Friday Mike in Jubei
useful lessons! Can i ask a question here? which means "哪一个"， How to use it? (the poistion) why it is after the verb like in this setence "你喜欢哪一个" but why it is befor the verb 'is' here "哪一个是牛肉" Thank in advance!
Good morning all from Buenos Aires. We have a lot of "colloquial" words in Argentine Spanish to refer to "thief" "chorro", like mugger in Eng. what are the words for thief in Beijing and Shanghai Chinese? Thanks J
In a dangerous situation like this, doing nothing might be the best way to protect yourself from further trouble, particularly when you're in foreign countries. I know I am a chicken, but I only have one life! I wish I were brave enough to yell and chase a thief.
This lesson just drew me right in. Wonderful sound effects. I wish the business intermediate lessons could have similar drama. Rather than just a tour through a trade show, why not put in a pickpocket who is working the show? Business folks with laptops who are distracted by looking at the merchandise at the booths--easy pickings.
Wow. Great lesson, and fantastic job by the actors in the dialog. I can't remember a recent elementary lesson where what is written (I'm going by the "Lyrics" tab in iTunes) looks kind of like what's spoken, but what's spoken sounds a little regional. eg: when the female voice says 偷东西 at the end of the first sentence, it sounds like she adds an extra 啊 (a1) at the end there. This sounds really colloquial, and very cool. I'd love to hear if that was intentional, and if so, what situations call for that ending? Also -- when the female voice shouts: 来人啊！That sounds pretty regional as well. Great job!
Also -- I notice that the characters in the banner-gif for this lesson: 抓小偷 can be translated as "catching a thief", "to catch the thief", or "To Catch a Thief", which is the title of an EXCELLENT Hitchcock film. I tried searching in Wikipedia to see if this is the Chinese title for this film but came up empty. Does anyone know if that's the actual Chinese title of the film, or if it's something different?
Wow. Great lesson. I look forward to the day that I can run down the street shouting madarin, in perfect grammar, and simultaneously handle an emergency. When I do, I'll give you guys all the credit! The use of 在 in this dialog was new to me, I have never heard it before. It would have been nice to hear a couple examples sentences of this usage in the podcast. Using example sentences would help make the grammar points more clear, and help prepare us elementary learners to make the big leap to intermediate. Can you add example sentences to some of the elemenary podcasts in the future? Thanks
Now I get to brag a little. Three months ago in the Shanghai Metro I saw a terrible fight between two men. They were tearing each other's clothes and head butting and looked really out to harm each other. Some of their friends were just watching and no one else interfered. So I yelled in my best baby-talk American-accented Chinese: Bie Zuo. Bie Zuo. 别做，别做。I really yelled and jumped up and down waving my arms, but at a safe distance. Robin 罗彬, the wiser of the two of us, held me back as if I were going to lunge forward and break up the fight. Apparently two gray haired Americans, one yelling over and over, got someone's attention, because a (very small) man in a uniform came over and stopped the fight. I've been proud of myself ever since. I guess big cities all over the world are the same, people don't stop bad things. But what might be unique to China was that even a very small man in a uniform has the authority to get people who want to kill each other to stop.
Dear John and Jenny. I enjoyed the lesson. It was quick paced, had drama and interest. However, the dialogue was a little too fast for me to follow. Pace is always a concern for me. Of course, this is an elementary lesson. An elementary class is basic. I think a normal pace may be beyond the scope of a elementary lesson. An elementary lesson is a rudimentary lesson. My experience is that I learn more thoroughly and more quickly with a more moderate pace. Even the break down was sped up in the discussion. I can see this pace in an intermediate class. However, this is just my experience about how I learn the language. I am a premium member, so it is not an issue of learning without the other features. They are invaluable. But, I learn in smaller chunks. I can easily hear and learn a simple sentence. Whereas, I am not yet capable of even repeating the sounds of a quickly pronounced, more complex sentence. So, from a learning stand point: I was able to pick up on some useful phrases. I can pronounce them. I see what they mean. The more fast paced curriculum was indeed of little learning value and I think it was because the pace was too quick. But, excuse me, I just saw a huge white whale pass through my room and I am out to harpoon the sucker.
I don't mind the challenge of the faster lesson in general, however it does mean its very hard to imitate/repeat/copy what the speaker is saying, Perhaps 第三次应该说慢一点马？ （third time should be slower?)
PACE - It's interesting to read the other Cpoder comments about the pace being too fast for them. I usually find the newbie and elementary dialogues read out too excruciatingly slow. To the point if you repeated it like it was read-out then you'd definitely sound like a newbie Chinese speaker. Is it a production issue that the 'three times' can't be two reads at a slow speed and the last at natural speed? Ken's been blogging about 'uncertainty' and creating interest in materials. I have to say that in this podcast, it was his comments and gentle poking fun at the 'reality' of saying 'stop thief' that held my interest. I find a lot of Chinese-produced materials have similar Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz like dialogue that quickly turns off my brain. I did once see a man running away, and another giving chase, xiao tou was yelled, as well as some other choice words. Including one ayi who called him 'trash'. It was hilarious. The thief had jumped over a wall to escape, the older lady took some trash and threw it over the wall, and said something, something la ji, as in 'you worthless piece of rubbish'. BTW I did think the dialogue was extremely well read and acted out!
Hi Lisa, Here's an answer to your question posted above about "哪一个" (nǎ yī ge): In the question “你喜欢哪一个” (Nǐ xǐhuan nǎ yī ge), the 哪一个 (nǎ yī ge)(or, "which", in English) is the object, so it comes at the end of the sentence in Chinese. In the other question you gave, “哪一个是牛肉” (Nǎ yī ge shì niúròu), the 哪一个 (nǎ yī ge)(or, "which", in English) is the subject, so comes at the beginning of the sentence. Hope that helps! ~amber :D
Oh come on, you call this fast! I'm not really up to elementary yet, but I listened to this one and thought the speed was about right for newbies. Look, you know hao don't you, you know bu, you know a few other words, well you just try picking them out of a real conversation or a movie like some of us are trying on the forum. It's bloody hard. We get such excruciatingly slow drawl throughout our lessons that real Chinese sounds like another language. What's the use of knowing how to say, very slowly, "hurry up, your bus is leaving" if we can't understand when a Chinese person says it? We do need to know what speech really sounds like, and this lesson was a great one for that, but still slow and clear enough that we could pick out all of the sounds with acuracy. If some people have trouble with this speed, that's further evidence that we're being held back by having too much too slow for too long. Sure, give us the drunken lullaby sound while it's being explained, but please allow us to hear close to full speed speech as well. The best place to start with full speed samples is the first lesson, before the rot sets in. In the particular case of this lesson, we're not likely to say those things if we find ourselves in that situation, but we'd be really glad to understand what's going on around us, without asking them to reapeat at one second per syllable while all of that's going on. And we'd be really glad to understand this vocab at this speed or faster if the speakers were addressing us at the time! Knowing what they're saying right away could help us to avoid a trip to the police station due to a misunderstanding. But not if we needed it repeated at silly-speed. Faster, I say. Faster! Faster! Faster!
Yes, Auntie Sue, I do call this fast, because it is fast for me. I mentioned the issue you just alluded to and it is an issue. But, you can't accept that it may be too fast for me? How intolerant. Just because it suits you, doesn't mean the world revolves around your pace in learning. Not all Chinese speak at the same pace. Some speak very slowly, others are motor mouths. Maybe should be a little more reflective and think about what you are saying. Anyone can be a word processor and spit out words. They are usually valueless. It is an elementary class...not an intermediate. Maybe that is where you belong. However, you are not in charge of the way I learn nor my learning needs. I have not received such a negative post from anyone at Chinese Pod like this one. I hope you are not part of the staff and I would prefer not to hear from you again. If you are so held back, why are you still struggling with Newbie:? I would suggest that your agenda is other driven. What that agenda is; who knows, who cares. I really should read through what you said again to see if I can cherry pick anything at all useful. In the meantime, have a nice life.
Lantian: Here is the way it works for me. I listen to the dialogue. I pick up the pace and rhythm of the language along with the proper tones. Then, I work my speed up. I don't know if you are a Newbie or not. But, if I had that kind of pace as a Newbie I would have been totally lost and might have sought help elsewhere. I don't know, just speculation. Sometimes I feel that there are intermediate students who are not getting there needs met there and so therefore want to upgrade elementary lessons to meet intermediate needs. That is my analysis. But, the bottom line is that I am trying to learn the language the best way my exerience tells me. And, I become more fluent, faster when the pace is slower. That is just the way it is for me.
Uh oh here I go, jumping in. Normally I'm a shy type, but I feel obliged to give Al a bit of support. If CP technology allows, it would be wonderful if the first listening was a little slower-paced in some of the elementary lessons. There is a mental click that happens when we realize that, in spite of our doubts, there are many words we can understand. Then when the pace speeds up, we pick them out like old friends. I know there are programs that will slow down music without changing the pitch.... Lesli, stuck in the U.S.
Al, I'm sorry if I caused you offence, that was not my intention at all. However, after re-reading my post and re-listening to the podcast, I stand by every word. It is important that different opionions about the speed can be heard, and, sorry, but mine is every bit as strong as yours. Nobody is suggesting that there should be only fast speech, it can always be repeated slower in the break-down. Then if it's still too fast, a bit of time in the learning center can do wonders, because you can tackle it one phrase at a time. If that is still too hard, then it seems to me that either the course has made us ill prepared for moderate paced speech, or the lessons are being chosen at too high a level, or both. When they vary within a level we always have the option to skip a lesson we don't like, or try one from another level. No, I'm not a staff member. I'm a middle aged woman with a full time job and many other activities, who hasn't studied for decades, and only gets about an hour in a good week to do any language study. My brain has started to slow down, and I too learn very slowly. The elementary lessons are way too long and have way too much new vocabulary in them for me, so I don't usually listen. But when I do, I often find that even the elementary lessons are so excruciatingly slowly spoken, as are the newbie lessons, that I don't feel that I'm being helped to understand spoken Mandarin. Everything I learn at a particular speed needs re-learning at a faster speed, and there's nothing here to help me to do that. Al, it's a terrible thing to lose a friend, but I'd rather do that than force all of the students to stick to artificially snail paced speech because one unchallenged person has lobbied while illustrating the learning-inhibiting effect of having been sheltered from sentences that flow together naturally. And after listening again, no, this one isn't fast at all, it's on the slow side of the range of normal speech speeds. The sentences are a bit long to hold in short term memory, but they're not speaking too fast and you can clearly hear every sound. If people were really excited about seeing a thief, they might speak a great deal faster than this. Well done, ChinesePod, I loved every minute of it. Though I can understand the lines now, I can't speak them that fast but I've almost got it down, and it feels great. Please try to help people like my dear ex-friend Al by exposing newbies to samples of the sound of real speech on a regular basis, long before they need to deal with it.
PS, in case anyone missed the point, I'm not proposing one particular speed at a particular level. I'm saying, along with others, that each lesson should have a wide variety of listening and speaking speeds in it, so that we can all get what we want, what we need, what we think we need, and what's good for us, in a single package.
I think it's good to have a spread in difficulty inside a level. After all, one's language proficiency is much more fine grained than a crude scale newbie-elementary-intermediate-etc. I guess this is supposed to be one of the more challenging elementary lessons. As much as people complain about the speed of speech now, I'm sure they will be glad to have this kind of podcasts later, when crossing from elementary to intermediate. One cannot expect to gain equal amount from all the podcasts. Myself. I'm still on the newbie level and my recognition of known word/phrase comes with a perceivable delay. I managed to understand few words in the dialogue the first time and managed to learn few more from the lesson (will see how long will they stay with me). That's it. Writing down the dialogue at this speed is indeed difficult. When you feel the full scope of the lesson is beyond your reach, simply get what you can and better to go back reviewing older stuff. You can return here any time in the future and pick up the rest. As for the idea to have the dialogue once in a normal conversation speed, I'm all for it. It would be great to have a chance to compare slow speech and normal speech. I noticed that the pronunciation changes according to the speed, some sounds tend to diminish or disappear and from what I read, the tonal envelope also changes (but my tone recognition is quite bad, so I doubt I'm able to hear the difference).
Excellent idea, I agree, lets have it slow for the first time then speed it up, (i don't want to be stuck at the slow speed, but if its too fast I cant understand how to speak/reproduce the new words in the conversation)
Today at the zoo, my son and I walked right past a very brave duck. She didn't so much as stir a feather even though I was right there in her face with my camera phone. I pointed to the duck and said, "鸭子," then switched from camera to my Chinese-English dictionary to check my tone.
Then I noticed the entry for "duck" as in to duck one's head, which it gave as "突然低下." And as the old joke goes, by the time I finish yelling that, the person I'm warning would be dead.
So, what does one say, in Mandarin, when a baseball is coming at someone's head?
hi penhuizc,
一个棒球 朝 某人的头飞过来.
Yī ge bàngqiú cháo mǒurén de tóu fēi guòlai.
@Cpod
The "Bookmark" link and the "Pop-out link" doesn't work :(
hi checkingoutchina,
I just checked those and they both work for me. Sorry about that, maybe try again?
@Amber
Thanks, it's working now :)
Wow, last post was Sep 2008! I'm such a late comer.
Regarding the pace of the lesson, I have no problem with this one. To run this at a Newbie pace in unrealistic.
There have been, however, a few of these elementary lessons where the male speaker in the dialgue sounds like he's had too much coffee while the female is talking at normal speed. That tends to throw me of balance a bit. Spitting the words out like a semi-auto assault rifle tends to blur the pronunciation.
I have some experience pounding Shanghai theives so really enjoyed this one. About half of my Chinese friends "lose" their phones per year to thieves and it represents about half their monthly income.
In People's Square I saw a thief in action and jumped on his back as he was leaning forward, like a bear falling from the sky, and rode him to the ground, stradling him and asking him "why?" in Chinese. He was pressed to the pavement and shocked that a foreigner would jump him. They usually use the element of surprise but since he was so focused on the crime I surprised him!
Another time by the big shopping center in People's square I saw the same guy who is stealing phones every day! It's his full time job so I recognized him and followed him after the subway. Sure enough, within 30 seconds he was putting his hand in a girl's purse for her phone. I ran up behind him, ang again using surprise, body slammed him into a nearby tree, causing him to drop the phone and cry out. Then I pulled him off the tree and threw him to the ground so he rolled over a few times after hitting the ground. His wife (with baby on back) made rude Chinese comments about my mother. The victim was confused about what all the excitement was about so I told her to pick up her phone and dial 110.
Seems no will to stop these folks. Can easily spot them on the street or popular malls because their rythym of walking and looking is DIFFERENT. If no one stops them the criminals win. However, am told that they often carry knives so may be dangerous.
Now I often prefer to hang at a distance, about 30 meters and call 110, ask for english line, and simply report what's going on--even if they're just casing people WAITING to rob I call, because it's so obvous.
Also, saw same mom with baby busted at doorway of mall. Yet she was on the street 3 days later.
BTW, my mind played that video loop of me body slamming him into the tree for weeks afterwards--was REALLY SATISFYING (on behalf of all my friends whose phones have been stolen)!!!
Steve,
It seems you missed your calling. Undercover doctor? I would like to see some lessons on arrest, criminal justice, and penal systems in China. I know very little about it and its the kind of knowledge you dont want to get first hand.
The exercises have this sentence (heehee, so happy to have upgraded!)
你给我站住。nǐ gěi wǒ zhànzhù, you give me stop.
I do seem to recall learning that 给我 [gěi wǒ] can be used as a command, but it is hard to imagine someone giving me a stop. 你给我听 [nǐ gěi wǒ tīng] (you give me listen) seems reasonable because listening is attention being given to the speaker, but 给我站住？Can someone help me wrap my head around that one?
I think it is simple as 给 gei here meaning 'for' rather than 'give'.
Wow, this new box is great - haven't posted for a while in 'Reply'. But I don't seem to be able to copy and paste, might be just me.
Here's a Qing Wen that covers that exact phrase and a lot more.
thanks bodawei and jckeith! I guess I never thought of 给 as 'for', but sure 'nough. Should have known there is a Qing Wen... Thanks for the link.
man! It isn't even an old Qing Wen.
I don't know too much about Chinese language, but what I have learned so far is that 'to give' is used differently in Chinese than it is in English. I find this the case with some other verbs, such as 'to play', and 'to know'. I hope this is helpful.
Yeah, I know it is different, but usually I can twist my brain and make it work. This one I needed some help. Thanks!