Blog

Yajie: Perfect Chinese your way, in only five minutes a day. Welcome to Chinese Studio. I’m Yajie.
Cam: It’s good to be back.  Zao shang hao Yajie.  Time sure flies. We are already at the end of the week. That means it’s time for us to go over what we’ve learned.
Yajie: This week we mainly focused on how to use numbers. Let’s go over Sentences In The week.

***************Sentences in the Week
During the week we focused on how to use numbers. For example, 2003年, the year 2003; 一月, January; 三月，March. 四月二十五号 April the 25. All in today’s Chinese Studio. 
****************

Yajie: In Chinese, the four figures making up the name of a year are read out as four separate numbers and “年” is put at the end. For example, this year, 2003年 (èr líng líng sān nián), the year 2003.
Cam: 2003年 (èr líng líng sān nián).
Yajie:Sometime people also say 两千零三年.
Cam: 两千零三年 (liǎng qiān líng sān nián).
Yajie: In Chinese the year 2000 is 2000年 (èr líng líng líng nián).
Cam: 2000年 (èr líng líng ling nián).
Yajie: Or you can say两千年 (liǎng qiān nián).
Yajie: Month in Chinese is 月(yuè). The name of the months are produced by combining the numbers 1 to 12 with “月”.
Cam: January is一月 (yī yuè)，February is二月 (èr yuè), right?
Yajie: Exactly! And how to say March?
Cam: Is it 四月(Si yue)?
Yajie: Nope, March in Chinese is 三月 (sān yuè). Remember we said, the name of the months are produced by combining the numbers 1 to 12 with “月”.
Cam: OK. I see. March is 三月 (sān yuè).
Yajie: In Chinese, the names of the dates are produced by combining the numbers 1 to 31 with 号, which is the spoken form for date, or 日, the written form. For example, December 25th, Christmas十二月二十五号 (shí èr yuè èrshí wǔ hào).
Cam: 十二月二十五日 (shí èr yuè èrshí wǔ hào). And the New Year is on the 一月一号(yī yuè yī hào), right?
Yajie: Right, it’s一月一号(yī yuè yī hào).
Yajie:  If you want to ask a child’s age, you could say “你几岁了？” (nǐ jǐ suì le?) 几 means how many. And 岁 means age.
Cam: “你几岁了？” (nǐ jǐ suì le?)
Yajie: For an adult or people of the same general age as yourself, you can say: 你多大了？
Cam: 你多大了？(ní duō dà le?)
Yajie: Yes. As I said before多, is an adverb, meaning how many? 多大together means how old. 你多大了？(ní duō dà le?)
***************Sentences in the Week
This week we learned how to say the days during a week in Chinese. The numbers from 1 to 6 follow“星期” and are employed to express Monday to Saturday. Monday, 星期一(xīngqī yī). Sunday, 星期日or星期天.  Also we learned how to ask one’s age in Chinese你几岁了？ 您多大了？
***************
Yajie:  One more thing there is another courteous way of asking a senior person’s age.  You can say: 您多大了？
Cam: 您多大了？(nín duō dà le?) We’ve learned 您. It’s the polite form of 你, right?
Yajie:  Right!
Cam: Send us your answer to chinese@crifm.com. That’s chinese@crifm.com. If you answer the question correctly, you’ll be able to win CRI prizes! Also you are welcome to log on to the website, that’s en.chinabroadcast.cn.  It’s available 24 hours a day.
Yajie: Well, every one, you can win a CRI gift by answering the question of the day. This time please make a sentence with 星期天. You might even win CRI prizes! Hope you will join us tomorrow on China Radio International. 再见！
Cam: 再见！