Newbie - Moving

Hi to you all! I find your Newbie lessons are great, with lots of information to work with from a short text. Very well contrived lessons.

Hello, .. Chinese Pod crushes Rosetta Stone! I do have a question. About 3 months ago I was trying to speak Chinese to some Mandarin speaking friends here in the US and I wanted to say 'I want to go to China' using the term 'yao' however they must have thought I said 'I am going to China' because they asked me 'shenme shihou' I tried to explain I wanted to go not that I was going to go, but being a newbie it got lost in translation. Please help clarify this double meaning for 'yao' and how to best notice the difference. Thanks -Jeff (Louisville, KY)

Hello! I agree with Jeff, this meaning for yao is also new for me... can't you say "wo qu" by the way? greetz - Bart

Hi, you can use 'yao' to indicate, in this context, that you 'will' go. If you want to say you want to go, you can use 'xiang' instead. 'wo qu' can be used, but not in this context to indicate you 'wish/want' to go. 'wo qu' means, literally, 'I go' So if you use that here, then you are effectively saying that you are going and not you want to go. Hope this helps.

A few days ago, I heard a rumor that our six-story apartment will be pulled down to build a new multistoried apartment sometime next year. What a pain! How can I enjoy my first move in China? 拆 (chai1)………….………………...… pull down 拆迁 (chai1 qian1)………………….... relocation 动迁 (dong4 qian1)…………………....relocation 补偿 (bu3 chang2)………………..... compensate 搬家公司 (ban1jia1gong1si1)..a moving company

I really like the addition of the pictures with the characters added for effect

or, to say "I really want to go to China"... wǒ zhēnde xiǎng qù zhōngguó 我真的想去中国。 "but I don't have the money" kěshì méi yǒu qián 可是没有钱 "。。。time" shíjiān 时间

To clarify what cc388 said, to make sure you use the right tone, yes, you should say: 我想去中国。 Wo3 xiang3 qu4 Zhong1guo2. Oh woops, I see tucsonmichael beat me to it, and used tone marks. -Rich, in Dalian, and it is still raining in LiaoNing provice and ruining my week holiday

"bribbing with beer and pizza"??? Beer yes, as it is cheaper than water, but usually just a nice Chinese mean does without paying for Pizza Hut and other expensive pizza. Still can't believe that 5 guys were willing to move me from my 7th story apartment (no elevator) to a 2nd story apartment across town with furnature and books for only 100RMB ($14 US).

Jenny or Ken In "It's Over" (intermediate) John and Jenny explain yi2ming2 13:30 which is to emigrate/immigrate. Could you explain the difference between yi2ming2 and ban1jia1? I think ban1jia1 has a broader meaning, due4ma?

I think I can answer that AZERDocMom. The second character in ban1jia1 (班家) is jia1 (家) which means house or home (change where you live). The second character in yi2min2 (移民) is min2 (民), which is used in words like citizen and people. 移民 suggests moving into a different group of "peoples", or switching countries.

what a mistake, arg! I guess that's 搬 not 班.

中国震得太好了;-) 但是什么是cheap在普通话吗?

travelyan Thanks for the word for word explanation. I find that method of explanation sort of like building blocks, building understand of a term based on it's individual hanzi words. It also really helps me remember new vocabs. tai4hao3le! xie4xie4ni3! BTW what are u doing up so late? 23:36:56? I'm just starting my day. U ought to be examining intently the back of your eyelids

In GMT for me it´s 18:49

1:00 am in S'pore ... don't understand the use of "le" in different sentences ... I thought "le" would be used for "accomplished" actions ?? great dialogues, thanks to the team ...

...yea, that pic is super-clever...im takin a break from unpackin as i type this! we had a whole lesson about moving last semester at Austin Comm. College (Chin II)。 we used a new text entitled 中文天地 (1st ed.)-(lots of lil' errors, good format tho, hopefully they received enough feedback from professors to clean it up a bit.)...thanks for reinforcing these practical lessons. 謝謝

大家好！ Hi, all of you,good evening.Again and again: ChinesePod is such a fantastic means to learn Chinese.Thank you for your unmatched professionality teaching this difficult language . Could you somewhen add a lesson about refurbishing a flat/ a house? 你们能给我们一个重新装饰的课文吗？Would be great. Walter in Berlin

I am going to use some of this to announce to my 朋友s that I am moving to 中国 in a couple years. How tearful. =p 谢谢，中文Pod!

Hi MoniqueinChina, There are a quite a few uses for 了 (le). You're right, one usage expresses a completed action. But the le you see in this dialogue is part of another pattern: 我要搬家了。 (Wǒ yào bānjiā le.) This is a sentence pattern using le that expresses that an action that is about to or going to happen: 要……了 (yào...le) here's another example using this pattern: 要下雨了。 (Yào xiàyǔ le.) It's going to rain.

I'd like to caution other users here. That little lesson intro written up there at the top of the page? Pure lies! I had a housewarming party for my new house just a few weeks ago. Did I get a plant? I did not! Where is my plant, ChinesePod?! :-P

Frank, I think it got stopped at US customs... hope you don't get a fine! ;)

I used to love Chinesepod because all the lessons and dialogues were so true to what you might encounter in day-to-day life speaking Chinese, but this lesson is absurd. This dialogue is so unrealistic. I mean come on, when have you ever heard of someone moving TO Canada???

TaiPan, From a 'Michigander'...that was very funny!

TaiPan & Bingge, You see, it's cause we Canadians got the raw end of the deal... the continent should have been split with the border running from north to south, rather than east to west. It's not our fault we got duped into all the cold weather.

who don´t like it where he/she is remember it´s possible to 搬家 ;-)

(should have been "who doesn´t like it... : remember...)

谁不喜欢在家可搬家 (is that written correct?)

谁不喜欢在家可以搬家 ;)

感谢你 :-)

Hehe TaiPan! From the number of Chinese here in Montreal, I would say that a lot of people, including Chinese, want to move to Canada.... however you are right, way more people WANT to move to Canada than actually can. :D Great lesson. And I want to say that after only a month with premium, I picked up some kids' picturebooks and could make out so much more of the meaning! Thanks!

Just out of curiousity, why do many Chinese people imigrate to Canada? I've been to Chinatown in Vancouver, and it was really neat.

Very interesting lesson! Can anyone tell me what the tones are on shihou? I have difficulty hearing what they are...

hi thebigpicture, 时候 shíhou second tone, then neutral tone

Thanks!

thank you so much ! I love this site

love this site

加拿大 is sometimes fondly referred to by those of us familiar with the country's many social "benefits" as 大家拿！ Seriously, I think many Chinese want to come here because they already have family/friends in Canada, and because it really is a pretty good place to live.

Hi lanqing and ngk79, WHY YVR? - A large part of the immigration to Canada by Chinese comes from Canada's efforts to encourage immigration to Canada. These laws, and the ability to immigrate based on a capital contribution, ie. starting a business and creating jobs, allows easier economic-based immigration. Of course, people then bring along their familes, and Canada is very family-friendly. In Vancouver, there were also regulations to recruit certain types of professionals that Canada was lacking. This brought many HK professionals as well as U.K. Chinese. Recently, the reversion of Hong Kong to China spurred a lot of immigration. The relationship to the Queen's crown (Britain) of her former colonies, also made immigration easier for Chinese from Hong Kong. Otherwise, why would outgoing, noisy, metropolitan Chinese people move to such a quiet, cloudy and sleepy place like Vancouver? ;p 开玩笑啊。 :)

Lantian: I agree Vancouver is cloudy at times, but "quiet and sleepy"? When did you last visit there?

One point of interest is that Vancouver's Chinatown is the second largest in North America. San Francisco is larger.

Hi Lanqing, Yup, quiet and sleepy in comparison to Los Angeles or Shanghai, absolutely. :) I find it interesting you didn't just say, "Vancouver has the largest Chinatown in Canada," because everyone knows that stuff in America (the U.S.A.) is bigger, better, and leaps over tall buildings in a single bound! 呵呵，我开玩笑。我说所有的东西美国比加拿大好多了，大家都知道！

it's great!

Hi,

Expansion sentence 1b: "xia4wu3 wo3 yao4 xue2xi2"......Why is there no "le" at the end?  In the dialogue a "le" was necessary and also in Expansion sentence 1a a "le" was necessary (ming2nian2 wo3 yao4 qu4 zhong1guo2 le).