Chapter 1. Once 你/你们已经
What does once usually mean in a sentence? Well, if you think it means “already”, “just”, “immediately”, or “at first”, then you’re right. It’s simply the one-time version of the modal verb 要. It’s not used as often as the one-time version of any other verb (like 想), but the context is still probably going to be one where there is a similar meaning for it to that of the modal verb 要, so in those contexts you’re free to use 已经/你/你们已经.
Example sentence: 你/你们再担当一次就好了.
你们/你要再担用一次吗？
Literally: Do you want to (need to) do it again?
You said: This is a common mistake
“你们/你需要再担任一次吗？”
你们/你再担任一次好嘞。
I think 你们/你会再来我家去好嘞。but I’m not sure, please correct me. I just tried to translate it on Google translate but I get something about you guys needing to do it again. I know the translation it’s wrong but I can’t seem to find the right words. 我不知道怎么解释。
This is a common mistake. The way you’re saying it is totally fine! You’re right. 你们/你們/你们/你们們 is a little bit different from 你/你们/你. In Chinese, 你/你/你们 can be a subject, meaning “you” in general or “you guys” if we’re talking about two or more people. But 你们/你們/你们/你們們 is a little bit more specific. It refers to the plural of “you guys”. The reason for this is because in Chinese, we can form a group with any number of people (one to one thousand to one million and so on) to do something.
If we just say “you” in English, it may refer to just one person. But if we say, “you guys”, we are talking about more than one person. So in Chinese, we create words to express this. The word 你们/你們/你們/你們們 is one of those words. For example: 你们/你們不要跟别人一起去饭店吃饭。
So you were saying that you think it’s a common mistake because you get that you’re saying 你們們/你們不要去做某事 with 就好了 in it, but the correct sentence would be 你们們不要去做某事就好了.
Example Sentence: 你们要看我们的电影嘞。
This sentence could be translated as “You guys should come watch our movie.”
Example Sentence: 你们应该叫我的电话。
This sentence could be translated as “You guys should call my phone.”
Example Sentence: 你们有多少朋友？
This sentence could be translated as “How many friends do you guys have?”
你们有多少朋友？
Literally: How many friends do you have?
你们对我来说多少朋友？
Literally: How many friends are you to me?
你們有多少朋友？
Literally: How many friends are you guys?
你們对我來說多少朋友？
The use of 你们/你們/你們/你們們 and 你们/你們不要/你們不要/你們不要 is common when speaking to a group of people.
Note: 你们/你們/你們/你們們 and 你们/你們不要/你們不要/你們不要 are actually not two very different words. The difference is that 你們 doesn’t sound as polite and formal as 你们, which is the reason why you’ll hear a lot of Chinese native speakers using 你們 in the street when talking with their Chinese friends.
You’re very welcome!
One of the things that I love most about learning Chinese is that it’s such an easy language to learn, I feel like I’m growing so much every time I learn something new, when in the past I wasn’t growing so much but in some regards I’m just repeating what I’ve been doing all the time. I find Chinese really fun because of how little things really do make a difference. Like, if you only learn this very basic aspect of Chinese, “You guys”, you’ll be able to hear the difference and I think I can really make a big difference for so many people with this small difference.
When you listen to an audio (not read by a human), you learn so much faster than when you read by yourself. And even better is when you have someone speak to you and help you practice. You’re able to do it much more easily and faster than by just going at it alone by reading or reading the written material.
This helps me when I help people learning Chinese. I give them a small exercise (like just the last tip in this lesson) and explain it. I also encourage them to get some audio from Tofugu, DuoLingo, or something like that. To have Chinese audio while I speak into the app, I use the free version of iTTT, so I can record from there. I’m going to be creating these kind of lessons for you guys to use with my apps that have audio, so I can help you guys really fast and I can be a lot more efficient. I’m going to continue this format of a lesson/exercise with more of these and more audio and with lots of videos. My plan is to have videos (of me) talking about each of these exercises and then I’ll give you guys exercises using the same ones as before.
After hearing the audio, students have to listen to the audio again and then answer these questions. What do you notice?
Note: It’s very common in some countries/areas for people to greet each other with ‘你好’ and sometimes, not only to say it, but actually show it to each other. Do you know how to respond when this happens? Or, maybe you’re not comfortable with it but you’d want to know? I’ll go into a more in-depth look at this in the future, but for now, this article will help you understand what it’s all about and how you can respond.
You mentioned this in passing in your comment to this lesson (in my opinion) and I was thinking to myself, if only people knew about this how much easier it would be to learn these characters.
I use these as examples in my ESL / EFL / EFL class to teach Chinese and when teaching Chinese I always use these as examples because I think they are really similar to teaching in a classroom. It’s hard to explain in words but these words are also really common and a lot of what I’ve learned from using these words I’ve also taught in the past through these examples.
What are the characters for? You’re very welcome!
I personally don’t use these as my students’ name (they’re too hard to say, not only that but a lot of the pronunciation is pretty far off so I don’t personally use them as names.) I’m not sure of the phonetics of the pronunciation, but I think they’re too hard to say. Especially “Mae-lo, that’s a nightmare. ” They’re kind of like baby name pronunciations. Even though that’s where I learned them from, I think I would feel bad saying them in front of people, or saying them as a name because I don’t
