{"id":10757,"date":"2019-11-17T05:21:23","date_gmt":"2019-11-17T05:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/spoken-chinese\/lesson-069-expressions-of-duration-i\/"},"modified":"2019-11-17T05:21:23","modified_gmt":"2019-11-17T05:21:23","slug":"lesson-069-expressions-of-duration-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/lesson-069-expressions-of-duration-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Lesson 069 Expressions of Duration (I)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Cam: Welcome to Chinese Studio. Da4 jia1 hao3, Wo3 shi4 Cam.
YJ: Hi, Wo3 shi4 YJ. Nice to have you with us again. I’m sure we’ll make a difference if we study for five minutes everyday.
Cam: Actually this is what we are going to learn today – some basic ex<\/em>pressions of duration.<\/p>\n

Key Words of the Day<\/strong>
\u4e00\u5e74\uff0cone year. \u4e03\u5929\uff0cseven days. \u4e94\u5206\u949f\uff0cfive minutes. \u4e00\u4e2a\u6708\uff0cone month..\u56db\u5468, four weeks. \u4e00\u4e2a\u6708\u6709\u56db\u5468 there are four weeks in a month. All in today’s Chinese Studio.<\/p>\n

Cam: We learned numbers in a previous show Yajie… but how do you say, for instance, one year, two years, three years …? 
YJ: Year is \u5e74(nian2)\uff0csecond tone. And remember one is\u4e00(yi)? So one year is \u4e00\u5e74(yi4 nian2).
Cam: Year is \u5e74(nian2). yi4 nian2 , one year.
YJ: Two years, \u4e24\u5e74(liang3 nian2). Three years, san1 nian2.
Cam: liang3 nian2 means two years, and san1 nian2, three years. YJ, so it seems that I just need to put the number in front of nian2, right?
YJ: Yes. And this rule also works on such as day, minute, etc. day in Chinese is tian1, and minute is fen1 zhong1. \u5929\uff0ct-i-an, first tone.
Cam: tian1, first tone, means day.
YJ: fen1 zhong1, both in the first tone, together mean minute.
Cam: feng1 zhong1.
YJ: Now Cam, how do say four days and seven days?
Cam: Four is si4 in Chinese. Seven is qi1. And day is tian1. So four days would be si4 tian1 and seven days – qi1 tian1. Right?  
YJ: Absolutely. How a<\/em>bout five minutes and eight minutes?
Cam: five is wu3, eight is ba1, and minute is Fen1 zhong1. So five minutes would be wu3 fen1 zhong1, and eight minutes – ba1 fen1 zhong1.
YJ: Very good. Let’s listen to these terms of duration again.<\/p>\n

Conversation1:<\/p>\n

YJ: Cam, do you remember the Chinese word for mo<\/em>nth is yue4, fourth tone?
Cam: Oh, you’ve reminded me. Yue4 means month. So I guess I can also just put number in front of yue to express one month, two mo<\/em>nth etc, am I right?
YJ: Sorry Cam, it’s not exactly the same. As for one month, you have to put a measure word ge4 between number and month, otherwise, it’ll be confusing. For example, yi1 yue4, which you think it means one month, actually means January.
Cam: Oh… right. Then what is the right way of saying one month?
YJ: one mo<\/em>nth would be yi2 ge4 yue4.
Cam: yi2 ge4 yue4, one month.<\/p>\n

Conversation2:<\/p>\n

YJ: Now we mentio<\/em>ned year, month, then I can tell you the Chinese for week.
Cam: I think I learned it before, it’s xing1 qi1, right?
YJ: absolutely. But a much easier and common way is: zhou1
Cam: zhou1
YJ: so one week is yi4 zhou1,
Cam: yi4 zhou1.
YJ: two weeks is liang3 zhou1.
Cam: liang3 zhou1.<\/p>\n

Conversation3:<\/p>\n

YJ: Now Cam, please try if you can understand this sentence: \u4e00\u4e2a\u6708\u6709\u56db\u5468\u3002(yi2 ge4 yue4 you3 si4 zhou1)\u3002Remember, you3 means ‘have’ or ‘there is something in someplace. ’.
Cam: ok, let me try it. And yi2 ge4 yue4 means one month. And si4 zhou1 means four weeks. So I guess the whole sentence means ‘There are four weeks in one month.’
YJ: Excellent. \u4e00\u4e2a\u6708\u6709\u56db\u5468\u3002(yi2 ge4 yue4 you3 si4 zhou1)\u3002There are four weeks in one month.
Cam: \u4e00\u4e2a\u6708\u6709\u56db\u5468\u3002(yi2 ge4 yue4 you3 si4 zhou1)\u3002<\/p>\n<\/div>\n