Lesson one Eating (part one)

Week two 什么好吃

Learn the following sentence

Shénme hăo         chī?
What      good (to) eat
 

Play Media  What is nice to eat?

Shénme what is a question word which used as the subject of the question here. Hăochī good/nice to eat or delicious is used as a verb in this question. Hăo can be place before any verb of actions to indicate that something is nice to… or easy to…

New words

Zhè Play Media    this
Play Media    that
Ge    Play Media    a measure word Ge is a Chinese measure word. Measure words are used to specify or quantifiers nouns. The most commonly used measure word is ge which mean that ... unit of ...
Fàn   Play Media    meal (e,g. chīfàn to eat a meal, ) or cooked rice
Hăo Play Media    good, nice Hăo can be used as a stative verb in sentences. A stative verb is like an adjective with a verb to  be. For example French food is good, but English food is not good. In Chinese it will be France food good, Britain food no good..
Hăochī Play Media   nice to eat, delicious
Zhè ge Play Media   this one
Nà ge Play Media   that one
Play Media   no, not. Bù not has two tones. when it is followed by a falling tone, it should be pronounced in the rising tone.

Supplementary words

Ròu         

Play Media   meat
                Play Media   chicken
Niú Play Media   ox
     

   and niú can be followed by ròu to form new noun phrases. For example ròu chicken meat.

Use the following word-order-table to form sentences.

Word order
       
subject (nouns and pronouns) adverbs and modal verbs verbs description of objects object (nouns and pronouns)
         
Zhège   this one Bù   not Hăochī   to be nice to eat    
Nàge   that one  

Hăo   to be good

   
Fàn   cooked rice, meal        
Cài    green vegetable, dishes of food e.g. zhè ge cài this dish        
Shénme   what        

                

Listening to the following sentences by clicking on the following links. Hover the mouse over "Answer" to view the answers.

Play Media   Answer
Play Media   Answer
Play Media   Answer
Play Media   Answer
Play Media   Answer
Play Media   Answer

 

Now you should be able to say the following sentences in Chinese

Is Chinese food nice to eat? Play Media
Is this dish nice to eat? Play Media
Is that Chinese dish nice to eat? Play Media
Is French food nice to eat? Play Media
What sort of food isn't nice to eat? Play Media
I eat meat, but don't eat veg. Play Media
Eating a lot of meat is not good (for you). Play Media
Chinese food doesn't have much meat. Play Media
Eglish food had a lot of meat. Play Media
I eat chicken, but don't eat beef. Play Media