 M: Péngyǒumen. Nǐmen hǎo! Huānyíng shōutīng Xiànzài Xué Hànyǔ. Wǒ shì ML.
S: Dà jiā hǎo. Wǒ shì Stuart. Before we get into the lesson proper, which is a bit about money, and some big numbers, let's find out who the star students are. At the end of the previous lesson we heard how we say ‘second', as in minutes and seconds, in Chinese. For one million dollars, how do we say, ‘eight seconds'?
M: Oh dear! I heard a guy say 八秒 bā miǎo, and 八秒钟 bā miǎo zhōng.
S: ML, will you give him one million dollars? 你给他一百万美元, 好不好？Nǐ gěi tā yì bǎi wàn měiyuán, hǎobùhǎo?
M: It's you who said you'd pay a million dollars. 是你说要付一百万美元的 shì nì shuò yào fù yì bǎi wàn měiyuán de.
S: I don't have dollars 我没有美元 wǒ méiyǒu měiyuán.
M: Ok, so you can give him one million pounds. 你可以给他一百万英镑，nǐ kěyǐ gěi tā yì bǎi wàn yìngbàng.
S: Or，I could give him one million Euros. 或者，我可以给他一百万欧元 huàzhě, wǒ kěyǐ gěi tā yì bǎi wàn ōuyuán.
M：I wonder where Stuart got all that money from.
S: Playing Monopoly!
M: Now to look at the new stuff. How do we say ‘one second'? Duìle. 一秒 MIAO, miǎo, is ‘second'. We can say 一秒 yìmiǎo, or we can say 一秒钟 yìmiǎo zhōng, 一样。
S: And remember, one minute is 一分 yìfēn, or 一分钟 yìfēnzhōng. Now, listen carefully. ML will say, Three minutes seventeen seconds.
M: 三分十七秒 sān fēn shíqī miǎo.
S: Now say, five minutes five seconds.
M: 五分零五秒 wǔ fēn líng wǔ miǎo.
S: Did you notice? Unlike in English, when it's nine seconds or less we need to add a 零 líng, which, as we learnt before, means ‘zero'. So, how to say ‘One minute six seconds'?
M: Duì le. 一分零六秒 yī fēn līng liù miǎo.
S: And so you can tell someone how long it took me to run a marathon, we should learn to say ‘two hours, five minutes and forty seconds'. A bit slow, but I had a blister.
M: I believe you! An hour is 一小时 yì xiǎoshí. Two hours is 两小时 liǎng xiǎoshí.
S: So ‘hour' is 小时 XIAO SHI xiǎoshí, just like we learnt in telling the time. So how do we say ‘two hours, five minutes and forty seconds'?
M: Duìle! 两小时五分四十秒 liǎng xiǎoshí, wǔ fēn, sìshí miǎo. Well, Stuart, telling people how quickly you ran the marathon is all very well, but what about the million dollars, 一百万美元, yì bǎi wàn měiyuán?
S: Tiān a! I'll have to go to the bank. Wait till next lesson. Zài jiàn. |
About Us 
