Professional Documents
Culture Documents
com
S: Wo shi Stuart. Let’s not waste time, wo men bu yao langfei shijian.
M: yi er san, kaishi!
M: Yes, you should have been speaking loudly to yourself in Chinese for at least 15 minutes.
S: Now, we’ll ask you, 他, or 他们,是哪国人? Ta, or tamen, shi nei guo ren?
M: Hen hao! Tamen shi Xinxilan ren. Tamen shi Xinxilan ren.
S: Too easy, 太容易, tai rong yi. So try this. Three are Irish, two are Canadians. Tamen shi
neiguo ren?
M: Dui le, tai hao le! 三个是爱尔兰人,两个是加拿大人. San ge shi Aierlan ren. Liang ge shi
Jianada ren.
S: Refreshed after that long break, here we go again. If you want to use a classifier for people
that is a bit formal, you can use 位,wei WEI wei, instead of ge. Let’s try it, again, three Irish,
two Canadians. Tamen shi nei guo ren?
S: Pretty good! Try using wei again, but this time it’s ‘two New Zealanders, four Americans’.
Tamen shi nei guo ren?
M: 两位是新西兰人,四位是美国人. Liang wei shi Xinxilan ren, si wei shi Meiguo ren.
S: 再来一次,once again, zai lai yi ci. This time all on your own, then ML will say it with you.
Tamen shi nei guo ren?
M: ….两位是新西兰人,四位是美国人. Liang wei shi Xinxilan ren, si wei shi Meiguo ren.
S: Tai hao le! You’re all so clever. 你们都这么聪明, nimen dou zheme congming! Agree ML? 你
同意吗?
M: Wo tongyi.
S: One more thing before we go. 美国人, meiguo ren, we know means ‘American person’, an
American.
M: But how do we say ‘American’ as an adjective? Like in ‘it’s American’. We say, 美国的,
Meiguo de. Add the little ‘de’. Meiguo de.
S: A bit of grammar now. The de is a possessive particle. We’ve learnt it in mine, wo de,
yours, ni de etc. So meiguo de literally means ‘of America’, that is, American. Or it could
mean, ‘belongs to America’. It depends on the context.
M: Now, for your gongke, homework, look at different things around you, imagine something
is American, or comes from America, and say 那是美国的, That’s American, na shi meiguode.
Then do the same with the other countries we’ve learnt.
M: zai jian.