Does the red one look nice?

Basic expressions

Mary is shopping in Beijing, looking for a coat. Today’s dialogue is carried out between a shop assistant and Mary.  The shop assistant is trying to persuade Mary to buy a coat. Let’s learn the new expressions in the dialogue first.

A surnames is appeared before xiăojie小姐 Miss, such as

                Lǐ xiăojiĕ 李小姐              Miss  Li

                Zhào xiăojiĕ  赵小姐         Miss  Zhao

                Wáng xiăojiĕ 王小姐         Miss  Wang

More colours are given below:

       lǜ                    绿            green

       huáng              黄            yellow

       lán                   蓝           blue

       zǐ                     紫           purple

       fěn                   粉          pink

       bái                   白          white

       hēi                   黑          black

       zōng                棕           brown

       huāde              花的       mingle-colours

 Hăo好good can precede verbs of action to imply nice to as in hăotīng 好听nice to listen.

 Duō多is followed by a stative verb to form an expression which shows speaker’s admiration, such as 多好看how beautiful!

 A duplicated verb is pronounced in neutral tone. A duplicated verb of action phrase implies that 1) an action which lasts for a short time, it is similar to V+一下such as in

      wŏ kàn kan jiù   gĕi    nĭ.

   a. 我 看  看    就    给    你。

    I  look look then give you

I’ll have a look (for a little while first) and I’ll give it to you;

2) it is used to soften the tone of voice as in

        ná     qù gĕi   tā  kàn kan.

    b. 拿     去 给   她  看   看。

    take go give her look look

Take it to her and let her have a look.

The latter one is often used when a verb is placed at the end of a sentence. A duplicated verb is pronounced in neutral tone as indicated above.

tĭng 挺 very is similar to hĕn很. tĭng 挺 is more frequently used in spoken Chinese than hĕn很.

The particle le 了for completed action is not used for verbs of feeling, such as juéde觉得.

    wŏ juéde hĕn lèi.

    我  觉得  很   累。

    I  feel/felt very tired.

 yidiănr 一点儿 proceeds a noun as in tā néng shuō (yi)diănér zhōngwén 她能说(一)点儿中文。She can speak a little Chinese. yǒudiănr 有点儿 proceeds a verb or a stative verb as in wǒ yóu dián ér mánɡ 我有点儿忙。I am a little busy.

    a. zhè jiàn yīfu hĕn jĭn 这件衣服很紧。this clothe very tight: this top is very tight.

    b. wŏ qián hĕn jĭn 我钱 很紧。 my money very tight: I am short of money.

a.  zhōngwén nán中文难。Chinese is difficult.

b.  yīngwén yĕ nán 英文也难。English is difficult too.

            Nán 难can also be placed before a verb to indicate: difficult to…as in

c.  zhōngwén nán         xué

    中      文   难           学。

   Chinese     difficult   learn

   Chinese is difficult to learn.

d.  zhènli zhōngwén shū hĕnshăo.  hĕn   nán     măi

这里   中     文     书   很   少，很    难         买。

here   Chinese     books very few very difficult buy

There are very few Chinese books here, so it is difficult to buy .

   我  们  非   常    欢   迎    您。

    we     extremely welcome you

    We  welcome  you  warmly.

b.   huānyíng  nĭmen lái     zhōngguó.

    欢迎      你们   来     中国。

    welcome you    come China

    Welcome you to China.