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Lesson One
Greeting Part 1 In this lesson I’ll teach you some very basic greeting expressions, based on "hello", "thanks", and "goodbye". OK, let’s begin. “Hello” in Chinese is nĭhăo. Please repeat after me, nĭhăo … nĭhăo… How do you say “hello” in Chinese?... nĭhăo. OK “Thanks” in Chinese is xièxie. Please repeat after me, xièxie… xièxie… How do you say “thanks” in Chinese?... xièxie. OK “Goodbye” in Chinese is zàijiàn. Please repeat after me, zàijiàn… zàijiàn… How do you say “goodbye” in Chinese?... zài jiàn. OK Do you still remember the expression “hello” in Chinese?... Yes, it’s nĭhăo. Nĭ means you and hăo means good. So in Chinese “hello” means “you good”. Let’s practise. How do you say “good” in Chinese? ….hăo…How do you say “you” in Chinese? …nĭ … how do you say “hello” in Chinese?... Yes, it’s nĭhăo… OK Do you still remember the word “thanks” in Chinese? … Yes, it’s xièxie. OK, how do you say “thank you”?... xièxie nĭ. Let’s revise the three expressions that you have just learned. 1. Goodbye…zàijiàn 2. Thank you …xièixie nĭ 3. Hello… nĭhăo Let’s imagine, you are arriving in Beijing Airport and you are met by a Chinese person. How do greet him or her? …Yes, nĭhăo. OK. The Chinese person is helping you to carry some of your luggage. You should say thank you. …Yes, xièxie or xièxie nĭ. After taking you to the place where you are staying, the Chinese person is about to leave. You should thank him or her and say goodbye. …Yes, xièxi nĭ. zài jiàn. I hope you can remember these expressions. See you next time. Goodbye, Zàijiàn.
In the previous lesson we have learnt hello: nĭhăo; thanks: xièxie;
goodbye: zàijiàn. We have also learnt you is nĭ and good is hăo. Today we are going to expand our vocabulary slightly and we are going to introduce four more new words to make a conversation in Chinese . In order to form a conversation, we have to learn other pronouns. “I” in Chinese is wŏ. Repeat after me, wŏ… wŏ…. “he or him” and “she or her” in Chinese is tā. Repeat after me, tā…tā… OK, now you should be able to say I, you and he or she in Chinese. How do you say I in Chinese? ...Yes, wŏ. How do you say you in Chinese? …Yes, nĭ. How do you say she in Chinese? …Yes, tā. Let me introduce you another expression “how are you?” In Chinese it is nĭ hăo ma. You’ve learnt nĭhăo (you good) which means hello. I’ve only placed a question particle ma at the end of nĭhăo, it becomes a question: how are you? You can place this question particle at end of some statements, it will turn the statements into questions. By using the same method, how do you say “how is he” in Chinese…. Yes, it is tā hăo ma. The answer to the above question could be tā hěnhăo which means he is very well. You may have noticed that the word hěn in the answer, which means very. We learnt four more new words today. 1. I… yes, it is wŏ. 2. he or she…. Yes, it is tā. 3. a question particle …yes, it is ma 4. very… yes, it is hěn. I am going to form two sentences by using the words that we have learnt. I will read them out loud twice, after that you have to tell me the meanings. 1. tā xi èxie nĭ … tā xièxie nĭ…What does that mean? …Yes, it means he thanks you.2. wŏ hěn hăo. nĭ hăo ma?... wŏ hěn hăo. nĭ hăo ma?... What does that mean? ... Yes, it means I’m very well and how are you? I hope you are ready to form a conversation by using these words. OK, let’s begin. How do you say “how are you”?... Yes, it is nĭ hăo ma How do you say “I’m very well. Thank you.”? … Yes, it is wŏ hěnhăo. xièxie nĭ How do you say how is he? …Yes, it is tā hăo ma? How do you say “he is very well and he thanks you. Goodbye.”?... tā hěn hăo. tā xièxie nĭ. zàijiàn
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