nǐ hǎo !, welcome to Yoyo“Intermediate Conversational Chinese”. The format of this
series is going to be a bit different from our Beginner Convesrational Chinese. For the
intermediate level, we’re going to combine the format of Beginner convesrtaional Chinese
and the format of “Chinese on the street”. Basically, in each lesson, we’re going to
watch an authentic Chinese dialogue clip first, and then, I will break the clip down and explain
all the important language points one by one to you. I think you’ll love this format.
Becasue I do. Alright hǎo de, without further delay, let’s take a look at the first part.
In our beginner level lessons, we learned how to ask “what’s your name”, nǐ jiào
shén me mīng zi? When you answer it, you say “wǒ jiào so and so”. Here, you may
have noticed that when the host asks the interviewee what her name is, she added “qǐng wèn“
at the beginning.
“qǐng wèn” literally means “please ask”. You say this first before you start
asking people a question, asking for a favor, or asking for direction, etc. It’s like
the English “may I ask”. This is really useful when approaching strangers because
you can make yourself sound extra polite. However, you don’t really need this for
someone you are close to, like your friends or family. You usually use qǐng wèn when
you ask a stranger a question.
Also, don’t make the mistake a lot of foreigners make: they think qǐng wèn means “excuse
me” in every situation. Remember, it’s only used if you want to ask a question. After
all, wèn means “ask.”
Alright, here’s another way to ask someone what their name is.
“nín zěn me chēng hū”. It literally is “you, how to address”, and that means
“how should I address you”. Nín is a polite nǐ. Zěn me is “how to”.
chēng hū means “to address someone”. So “nín zěn me chēng hū” is a great
way to let the other person tell you how he or she wants to be addressed.
Well, when our host asks the gentleman with glasses “nín zěn me chēng hū”, he
says “
“wǒ xìng sūn”. That means “my last name is Sun”. In Chinese, the word “xìng”
is both a verb and a noun. It can mean “last name” or “to be last named as..” Well,
I know it doesn’t quite make sense in English, but just remember, when you want to say “my
last name is Smith”, you say “wǒ xìng Smith”. Basically, he gives a clue to our
host as to how he wants to be addressed, so our host starts to address him as “sūn
xiān sheng – Mr. Sun.”
Let’s watch this part again:
Let’s move on:
Another super polite and formal way of asking someone’s last name is “nín guì xìng”.
Nín is the formal “nǐ”, “xìng” means “to be last named as”. Here, guì
means “of high rank”. You already learned “guì” before, and it means “Expensive”.
For example when you complain something is too expensive, you say “tài guì le”.
When you ask someone “nín guì xìng”, you are really asking “What’s your honorable
last name”? It’s quite useful in a formal or business occasion, or when you want to
show off your Chinese! Chinese people will be like “whattt…”? Anyway, how would
you answer this question “nín guì xìng”?
Well, this is what this gentleman says”
Well, this is actually pretty advanced stuff so if you say this, you will get serious some
admiration from your Chinese counterparts. In this sentence “miǎn guì xìng liú”,
miǎn means “to avoid” or “to remove”. So the whole sentence literally means “remove
the “guì” part, my last name is Liu”. It’s an ultra humble way of answering the
question “nín guì xìng” what’s your honorable last name? You’re like “No no
no, my last name is not that honorable. Let’s get rid of the “guì” part, and leave
my last name as it is. miǎn guì xìng liú
You might be like “what the heck are you talking about? This all sounds very strange”.
Well, i know, this “over-the-top” way of expressing humility is very, very Chinese.
Sometimes it may even seem a bit too much and completely unnecessary to westerners.
But I think it’s pretty cool to learn this so you can pleasantly surprise your Chinese
friends. Why not?!
Here, our host asks this gentleman “may I ask what your honorable last name is”.
qǐng wèn guì xìng. Here, she omitted “you” in the sentence. The gentleman says “miǎn
guì xìng wáng”. He’s saying “Remove the “guì” part, my last name is wáng.Upon
hearing that, our host starts addressing him as “ wáng xiān sheng- Mr. Wáng.
But when he hears our host calling him “wáng xiān sheng”, which is very formal he says,
Jiào wǒ xiǎo wáng jiù kě yǐ le. Here, please memorize this sentence structure “jiào
wǒ so and so jiù kě yǐ le”. It means “just call me so and so”. Here, “jiào
wǒ so and so” means “call me so and so”. jiù kě yǐ le means “will do or will be
all right.” You can also say “jiù xíng le”. “jiù kě yǐ le” and “jiù xíng
le” mean the same thing. For example, if someone asks you “nín zěn me chēng hū”?
how should I address you? You can say “jiào wǒ John jiù kě yǐ le, ”. Or “jiào
wǒ John jiù xíng le”. They both literally means “calling me John will do”. okay.
Repeat after me. jiào wǒ Mary jiù kě yǐ le.
Or jiào wǒ Mary jiù xíng le.
Anyway,
this interviewee looks quite young so he’s probably not very used to people calling him
Mr yet.
fēi cháng hǎo! Now you know different ways
of addressing someone. Please try to use them so that you can start diversifying your chinese
sentences. I hope you enjoy our very first Intermediate Conversational
Chinese lesson. See you next time, xià cì jiàn. Bye.