edX Basic Mandarin Level 2- Lesson2
This week, as last week, the format was much the same. We went through the new vocabulary and as usual Estella reminded us of the importance of tones and went over them again.
The vocabulary was mainly about some types of jobs and things to do with having a baby and twins, and about family connections and relationships. As you may already know chinese has a specific term for each member of the family. This lesson we learnt 20 different terms for family members.
This week's grammar points were:
1) 。。。。当 。。。。 dāng to be/become as in to become a doctor or to be president
2) 。。。。又。。。。又。。。 ...yóu....yóu..... not only.....but also.../....both....and.... something that has two qualities.
3)是。。。。。德 shì......de this is one of the more complex grammar patterns and a quick summery here will not do it justice so have a look at the grammar wiki or similar for a full explanation.
4)快。。。。了 kuài.......le about to something is about to happen ie: it is going to rain soon.
The dialogue is about families and occupations. We learn Estella's little brother is about to graduate from university and wants to become a model. Ben's (Estella friend) parents are teachers and his older sister is a lawyer. There is some discussion about jobs and careers.
We also learn that Ben's older sister gave birth to a pair of twins, one boy, one girl. Estella tells Ben this is good because the chinese word for good is made up of the character for girl and the one for boy so a pair of twins of one of each = good - 好
This week's Prollster question was "Why did I want to learn chinese?" The answer had to be 2 sentences in pinyin or characters.
I got 100% on the quiz and 3 points for answering the Prollster question.
So now I am looking forward to lesson 3.
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