11th January 2019

Lesson eleven

CurrencyAdvanced numbers

Key characters

at

Review

Writing activity – What are they eating?Copy out the questions and answers below, filling in the gaps. Next, fill in the missing tones above each word. The first one has been completed for you.

1. Ni he shen____? Wo ____ ____kou____le.

2. Ta chi ____me? ____ chi yu.

3. Nimen he _____ ___? Wo ____ ____ shui.

4. ____ chi miantiao ma? Shi. Wo ____ ________.

1. 他 星期二 吃 什么？

2. 他 星期五 喝 什么？

3. 他 星期一 吃 什么？

4. 他 星期三 吃 什么？

5. 他 星期四 喝 什么？

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Reading & Writing activity – What does Zhilín eat and drink during the week?Look at the days of the week and the pictures and match the questions on the left and the answers on the right. The first one has been completed for you.

e.g. ____men chi shenme? Tamen ____ mi____.

Answer: Tāmen chī shénme? Tāmen chī mǐfàn.

a. Yú hé miànbāo.

b. Chá hé Kěkǒu kělè.

c. Tāng hé niúnǎi.

d. Niúròu hé mǐfàn.

e. Jīròu hé miàntiáo.

chī

hē

chī

chī

hē

百 bǎi hundred零 líng zero千 qiān thousand万 wàn ten thousand百万 bǎiwàn million

Advanced numbers

Numbers in Chinese are really easy, you just say what you see, so 1348 is “one thousand three hundred four ten eight”. However, be careful with numbers like 103 where we must say “one hundred zero three”

Pair activity – bigger numbers

308 43,908 250 1,000,000

1520 1,843,000

20,000 10,000,000

Practise saying the following numbers with your partner. Don’t forget those tones!

The currency in mainland China is the 元 yuán. In common speech, people say kuài instead of yuán, much as we might say ‘buck’ instead of dollar. English currency is the 英镑 Yīngbàng, frequently shortened to bàng.

多少? duōshǎo?

多少 钱? duōshǎo qián?

块 kuài

how many/much?

how much money?

duoshao qián?

‘piece’ – a common word for yuan

OK.

Duōshǎo is made up of two words put together: the word for 'many' (duō) and the word for 'few' (shǎo). Together, 'many-few' literally means 'how much' or 'how many'. Here are some more examples:

Duoshao

duōshǎo rén? how many people?duōshǎo shuǐ? how much water?duōshǎo zhǐ? how much paper?

Duōshǎo is used when asking questions about numbers above 10. For questions about smaller numbers (for example, ‘how many brothers do you have?’) we use the word jǐ. We will look more closely at jǐ in the future.

Yǒu and méiyǒu are useful for buying things. We have learnt that these words mean ‘have’ and ‘don’t have’. Listen to the following dialogue between a customer and shopkeeper. Can you hear how much the items cost? Fill in the gaps.

Listening activity – ‘Have’ and ‘don’t have’

A: Yǒu zhǐ ma?B: ____.A: Duōshǎo qián?B: ____ kuài.

A: Yǒu shū ma?B: Yǒu.A: Duōshǎo qián?B: ____ kuài.

A: Yǒu shuǐ ma?B: _____.

3.1.

2.

With a partner, practise buying and selling things using the following dialogue. Use the objects that we learnt in previous lessons and choose your own prices.

A: Yǒu _____ ma? Do you have...?

B:Yǒu. Yes.

A: Duōshǎo qián? How much?

B: _____ kuài. kuài.

A: Xièxie! Thank you.

Pair activity – Let’s go shopping!

冰淇淋 bīngqílín

battery电池 diànchí

ice cream

报纸 bàozhǐ newspaper

1 2 3 4 5 6

By now you can refer to things around you with zhè or nà. When you want to say 'this one' or 'that one', you can say zhè gè or nà gè.

Sometimes you will not know the word for what you want to buy, and so you will have to point to it. The phrases zhè gè and nà gè are useful in such cases. Practise the following dialogue, pointing to things you want to buy. Remember zhè means 'this' and nà means 'that'.

Pair activity – This one/That one

zhè gè, nà gè

Zhè gè This one. Wǒ mǎi zhè gè. I'll buy this one. Wǒ méiyǒu nà gè. I don't have that.

Listening activity – What are you buying? When you go into a shop in China, you will often be greeted with ‘nǐ mǎi shénme?’ which means 'what are you buying?' Listen and match each person with what he or she bought.

Nǐ hǎo. Nǐ mǎi shénme?Hello. What do want (to buy)?

____ kuài.It's ... kuài.

Zhè gè duōshǎo qián? How much is this one? Nà gè duōshǎo qián? How much is that one?

Hǎo, wǒ mǎi zhè gè/nà gè. OK, I'll buy this one/that one.

In spoken Chinese, zhè gè and nà gè are often pronounced zhèi gè and nèi gè.Watch your tones when saying you want to buy something in Chinese. To buy (mǎi) and to sell (mài) sound exactly the same, only the tone is different. Just think howimportant tones are in a Chinese market – otherwise no one would know who is buying and who is selling!