Rocket Chinese 6 Day Course -

Understanding Spoken Chinese & Taking Part in Conversations

You asked for it!

Many of you have wondered what an
ADVANCED Audio Lesson would sound like.
Well, we've added one at the end of today's newsletter! Enjoy it!

Nǐ hǎo, huānyíng lái dào Rocket Chinese!

Welcome to Part One of the Rocket Chinese 6-Day course on common

Greetings, including your first Audio Lesson!

This is the first in your series of lessons that are designed to get you speaking conversational Chinese in
no time!

We're not going to start you on memorizing vocabulary words or practicing grammar. Instead, you're going
to start learning to SPEAK Chinese in a conversation, right from the get-go!

The Audio Track below is the Introduction track from the Rocket Chinese Interactive Audio Course.

This Introduction track is about 20 minutes long, and the remaining 30 audio tracks in the course average
around 25 to 30 minutes in length.
Double click on the audio button to listen to the Introduction track on Basic Greetings in Chinese. Each
audio lesson will include a full conversation between me and my good friend Dave Lewis, your host for the
Rocket Chinese audio lessons.

In addition, we will include the Chinese conversation along with the English translation for each lesson.
You can choose to listen to the lesson with the transcript, or without. We recommend you try both, first
without the transcript, so that you can really focus on the pronunciation and rhythm of spoken Chinese.

Following each translation, we also include all of the relevant vocabulary we discuss in each lesson but
that does not appear in the dialogue itself, so that you can see this stuff in written form as well.

Because you will be participating in the lesson, make sure that you listen in a quiet place where you can
speak aloud without being disturbed. By the end of it, you'll be able to greet someone in Chinese and ask
how they are in a variety of contexts and at all different times of the day.

Above all, Chinese is a challenging but very rewarding language to learn, and your experience of learning
the Chinese language should be an enjoyable one.

Let's get started!

Use the controls below to play, stop and pause the

audio track. Or you can download this track using Better quality, download and play anytime!
the link on the right. Right Click To Download This Track In MP3 Format
(RC_Greetings_0.0.mp3 - 11.5MB)

» Chinese Conversation (Pinyin)

Dave: Nǐ hǎo ma?

Lin: Wǒ hěn hǎo. Xièxie! Nǐ ne?
Dave: Wǒ yě hěn hǎo. Xièxie
Lin: Zàijiàn.
Dave: Zàijiàn.

» Chinese Conversation (Characters)

Trouble Displaying Chinese Characters?

Click Here!
Dave: 你好吗?
Lin: 我很好。谢谢。你呢?
Dave: 我也很好。谢谢。
Lin: 再见!
Dave: 再见!

» English Translation

Dave: How are you?

Lin: I'm very good. Thanks. What about you?
Dave: I'm also very good.
Lin: See you.
Dave: Bye.

» Extra Vocabulary

nín you (more polite version of nǐ)

zàijiàn see you later

From Lesson 6.4 on Feeling Unwell

Click on the play button to hear the audio.

Along with each audio track you get the full transcript of the conversation in Chinese in both Pinyin and
Characters, followed by the translation in English.

Lin: Nǐ de liǎnsè hěn cāngbái. Nǐ zěnme le?

Dave: Wǒ juéde bù shūfu. tóu téng. Hái késou.
Lin: Nǐ gǎnmào le. Fā shāo ma?
Dave: Hǎoxiàng yǒu yī diǎnr. Wǒ quán shēn dōu juéde lěng.
Lin: Wǒ gěi yīshēng dǎ diànhuà. Wǒmen yuē shíjiān qù kàn yīshēng ba.
Dave: Bú yòng, wǒ zìjǐ chī diǎnr yào jiù xíng le. .
Lin: Hǎo ba. Wǒ mǎshàng qù yàodiàn.

Characters:

Lin: 你的脸色很苍白。你怎么了？
Dave: 我觉得不舒服，头疼。还咳嗽。
 Lin: 你感冒了。发烧吗？
Dave: 好像有一点儿。我全身都觉得冷。
Lin: 我给医生打电话。我们约时间去看医生吧。
Dave: 不用。我自己吃点儿药就行了。
Lin: 好吧。我马上去药店。

English Translation:

Lin: You look pale. What's wrong with you?

Dave: I feel uncomfortable. I have a headache and I'm also coughing.
Lin: You've got a cold. Do you have a temperature?
Dave: A little bit, I think. I feel cold all over the body.
Lin: I'll ring the doctor and make an appointment for you.
Dave: No need. I’ll take some medicine and I'll be fine.
Lin: Alright. I'll go to the pharmacy right now.

» Extra Vocabulary

juéde bù shūfu feeling unwell

liǎnsè face, complexion
wǒ zěnme le? what's wrong with me?
nǐ de péngyǒu zěnme le? what's wrong with your friend?
wǒ de chē zěnme le? what's wrong with my car?
diàn shop

In tomorrow's lesson we'll take a closer look at the conversation on Greetings in written form. The best
way to figure out how something works is by taking it all apart and then examining all of the component
parts. Language is no different. Of course, taking it apart is the easy bit. Eventually, you'll have to get good
at putting it all back together. But there's plenty of time for that!

In the meantime, don't be shy, keep practicing, and if ever you feel lost for words, take comfort in the fact
that there is a simple way to stall for time in Chinese. You can say:

nage (pronounced: nay-guh) = "Um..."

It literally means "that" in Chinese, but you can pepper it through any conversation in the same way we
use "um," and you will sound like the genuine article! Nage... that's all for now!

Zàijiàn! (See you later!)

Lin Ping
Rocket Chinese