HSK 1 · Objects, Quantities and Buying
HSK · HSK · HSK 1 Sujet 3 3:00 Narration en anglais · Sous-titres anglais + 中文 incrustés
Chapitres
Transcript
Your first shopping trip in Chinese, in three moves. Count things with a measure word, ask the price with duoshao qian, and say what you want with wo yao. Along the way you will meet the liang-versus-er split and the little word de that marks ownership. Three moves and the shop is yours.
Counting in Chinese needs a bridge. The pattern is quantity, measure word, noun: yi ge pingguo, one apple. Liang ge pingguo, two apples. The measure word, ge for everyday things, bridges the number and the thing, a little like English two cups of tea, except Chinese needs that bridge for almost every noun, which is why omitting it is the classic error: yi pingguo just doesn't stand. Count three things on your desk with ge, and learn each noun together with its measure word from the start.
Chinese has two twos, and the job decides. Liang counts objects before a measure word: liang ge pingguo, two apples. Er stays inside number names, dates and ordered numbers: ershi san, twenty-three; xingqi er, Tuesday. You never say er ge pingguo, and you never say liangshi san. The rule of thumb: if it is touching a measure word, it is liang.
The shop dialogue in three lines. I'll take two apples: wo yao liang ge pingguo, where yao requests the item. Ten kuai: shi kuai qian. Around it, two more tools: wo xiang mai, I'd like to buy, for the softer wish, and duoshao qian, how much, for the price. On a price label, read three separate facts, the quantity, the item and the price, and keep them separate when you answer. And ownership: de marks whose it is, wo de shu, my book.
The watch-out writes itself into the counting pattern: the measure word is compulsory, so yi ge pingguo works and yi pingguo does not, the bridge cannot be left out. And the habit that prevents the error: learn each noun together with its measure word as one unit, in context, so the pair arrives already assembled in your mouth.
Pause and check both. First, liang counts objects before a measure word, while er stays in dates and number names. Second, de marks ownership, wo de shu, my book. The remaining review items: the full counting pattern is quantity, measure word, noun, liang ge pingguo, and the price question is duoshao qian. You can now buy two apples and say whose book it is.