Scribd
Upload
35 views

I Don't Have Dollars

Stuart and ML are having a lesson on telling time in Chinese. They discuss saying numbers like seconds, minutes and hours. Stuart had promised to give a student one million dollars but says he does not actually have any money. He jokes that he could give the student one million pounds or euros instead. They practice saying times like "three minutes seventeen seconds" and "two hours, five minutes and forty seconds."

Uploaded by

cchello
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
35 views

I Don't Have Dollars

Stuart and ML are having a lesson on telling time in Chinese. They discuss saying numbers like seconds, minutes and hours. Stuart had promised to give a student one million dollars but says he does not actually have any money. He jokes that he could give the student one million pounds or euros instead. They practice saying times like "three minutes seventeen seconds" and "two hours, five minutes and forty seconds."

Uploaded by

cchello
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

www.cchello.

com

I don't have dollars

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.

Coryright 2007 cchello.com


www.cchello.com
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 jià

Coryright 2007 cchello.com

You might also like