20 ESSENTIAL Chinese Phrases for Beginners Part 2

Hey everyone and welcome to another 20 essential beginner Chinese phrases that you must know. My name is Ben Hedges, I have a degree in modern and classical Chinese, I lived in Asia for 10 years and I've made my career teaching Chinese and I can teach you how to sound like a boss in Chinese. If you like the sound of that, why not subscribe for new videos every week. Last week we did a part 1 of this video and some people complained that we taught the And basically they're saying that people don't say that very much anymore as a greeting, okay? 你好吗? Meaning, how are you? People are more likely to say 你最近怎么样? As a way of saying, how are you? That is true. But I think the reason that the textbooks still teach 你好吗? Even though it's kind of outdated, is because it is a kind of simple way of teaching the 吗? Type question. Basically if you add the word 吗? To anything, it becomes a question. So if you say 你好? You good? Hello? In Chinese. The most basic way of saying it. And then you add a 吗? It makes, you good, right? 你好吗? How are you? So that's why a lot of textbooks still teach it, in my opinion. But critics of that are right, that people in China and Taiwan, they don't really say 你好吗? As a greeting that much anymore. But anyway, it is a good way of understanding the 吗? Type question. But let's now get into 20 more beginner Chinese phrases. And our first one is 台. Something 了. And this is a way of expressing things that are excessive. So if you wanted to say too hot, like the weather outside is too hot, you could say 太热了. Same as if you were drinking a hot drink, 太热了. If it was cold, if it was winter, you could say 太冷了. And you could say that with a cold drink too, or a cold ice cream, 太冷了, I don't want to eat this, right? If something in a market was too expensive, you could say 太贵了. Or if something just looked kind of cheap in its design, you could say 看起来太便宜了. It looks too cheap. And you could basically add in any adjective in this. I might do a video of useful 太 something 了 phrases, but I'll just read off a few. 太旧了. Too old. 太亮了. Too bright, like bright sunlight. 太好了. That's too good, okay? It's really good. That's a positive way of using it. 太棒了. It's another way 棒 is kind of a similar meaning to good, like too great. It's too amazing. 太棒了. So you can have fun with that, just picking adjectives and adding them in between the word 太 and the word 了. Okay? 太 means too, and 了 is kind of like, in this case, sort of just more of an emphasis. Next, how to ask if someone is all right. Let's say you see someone on the street stub their toe or fall over, have a minor mishap. You can say to someone, or your friend has a minor mishap, spilled a drink on something, or they hold their stomach like, ooh. You could say, 你还好吗? Which means, are you still okay? 你 is you, 还 is still, okay? And 好 obviously means good, and then 吗 makes it into a question. 你还好吗? Are you okay? And then the way they'd respond to this, which is our next phrase, you could just say, 还好? You know? No problem. 还好? You could repeat it a few times. Oh, 还好,还好. Another way of saying literally no problem is 没问题, like if someone asks if you have a problem, or someone could ask, 你还好吗? You could say, 哦,还好,没问题. Follow it up with that, all right? Another way of saying that there's nothing wrong, similar to 没问题, is 没事. And if you're a Northeastern, or if you want to learn a Northeastern dialect, you can add an 儿 to it, 没事, okay? But just don't go, 没事, and sound like a pirate, okay? Because everyone's just going to think you're stupid, or like, if you learned English and you intentionally learned a Cockney accent, and you're always emphasizing, people would just be thinking, like, this guy's an idiot. But yeah, normally it's best to just learn the kind of standard accent, so 没事,没事. But yeah, if you are, like, in the Northeast of China, and you want to kind of blend in, you could, 没事,没事. So nothing's wrong, okay, 还好,没问题,没事. These are 都可以, okay? That's our next phrase, 都可以, which means all okay. And you could say any of these, basically, to say that you are fine. And 都可以 can be used in this way, if someone gives you two choices, and you don't really mind. Like, if someone says, 你要去唐人街吃广东点心,我还是去吃麦当劳, okay? You want to go to Chinatown and eat delicious Chinese dim sum, or do you want to go to McDonald's? And you don't really mind, for some reason, all right? I would choose the dim sum, but this person doesn't really mind. You could say, 都可以, all okay, no problem. Don't know why you would say that, but hey, go for the dim sum. All right, now if you want to ask someone a question, and you know, you could say this to someone you know, but this is particularly useful if you're kind of cold approach to someone that you don't know, especially on the street, and you want to ask a question, or at an event, or something like that. But you say, 请, when, okay? 请 is kind of, you can use it, you can translate it as please, you could also translate it as may I, and then when is to ask, okay? Like we've seen, 问题 means question, so 问 means to ask, so it's kind of like, may I ask? So let's say you want to approach someone on the street, and you're asking for directions, you could say, 先生,请问, and then you could go with your question,银行在哪里? Where is the bank? Okay, so 请问 is a very useful phrase if you want to just go up and ask someone a question, it's kind of a polite way of saying, hey, I want to ask a question. Let's say, asking someone on the street, where is the bank, or something like that, a useful way of asking where something is, is saying, 怎么走? So if you were asking where the bank is, you could say, 银行怎么走? You literally put the place you want to go at the beginning, and then you say, 怎么走? And I want to give you a difference between 怎么走 and another phrase. So 怎么走 literally means, how to get there, okay? Should I walk straight down the street, and then I turn left, and then I take the next right, something like that, okay? So basically, if you say 怎么走, you can assume the person is going to give you directions, like physical directions, okay? But if you say 怎么去, okay, that means, how should I go there? And if you say 怎么去, it's really like, should I take a taxi, should I take the subway, should I walk? And you could expect the person is going to tell you the most convenient way to get there, so they could say, 坐地铁最方便, alright? If you say 怎么去. So 银行怎么去? 坐地铁最方便, that means, taking the subway would be the most convenient way to get to that bank that you want to go to. Now, another phrase that is going to be useful for talking to people that you've only just met, whether that's out on the street, or at a party, or something, is asking them what they're called, okay? 怎么称呼您? Literally this means, how address you? How should I address you? And 您, by the way, is the more polite way of saying 你, okay? So 怎么称呼您? That's a polite way. So let's say someone did just say, oh, you did just ask them how to get to the bank, and they told you, oh, you know, taking the subway, or whatever, at the end you might want to just politely be like, oh, 怎么称呼您? And the guy says, oh, I'm 张先生, and you say, oh, 张先生,谢谢你. Or let's say you're at a party, and you really do want to get to know someone and know their full name. You could say, 怎么称呼您? And they probably will tell you what their name is, or they might even give you a business card. Right, the next useful phrase is to ask if someone likes something, or the word to like, which is 喜欢. And if you've ever seen the McDonald's commercial in China or Taiwan, okay, 我就喜欢, that's how they translate I'm loving it, all right? So you can see, technically it's I'm liking it, or I really, I like it, right? But 喜欢 is the word you use to say that you like something, okay? So you could say, oh, 你喜欢中国菜吗? Do you like Chinese food? You can also use the choice type question instead of the 吗 question. So instead of saying, 你喜欢不喜欢? We say, 你喜不喜欢中国菜? Okay, you don't need the 吗, because you're already giving a question, because it's the choice type question. But with these two word verbs, you don't repeat the entire verb twice. You just take the first character. So instead of 喜欢不喜欢, it would be 喜不喜欢, and that's going to go for a lot of different Chinese verbs that are two-character. When you do the choice type question, you just take the first character. And this leads us in well to another word that sounds similar to 喜欢, but actually means something different, and that is 习惯, okay? And I got confused a lot about this my first year in Taiwan, but, because people come up to me and they say, 你习惯台湾吗? And I would think they're saying, 你喜欢台湾? And I would be like, oh yeah, 我喜欢. And they would be like, 不不不, 你习惯台湾吗? And it actually means to be used to something, okay? Have you become accustomed to it? Are you used to it? So after living there for a couple of months, they wanted to know if I'd adapted to it and got used to living there. So they were saying, 你习惯台湾吗? And you could also use the same choice type question, 你习不习惯台湾? Or anything, right? Like if someone's come to the U.S., you could say to a Chinese person, 你习惯美国吗? Like, are you used to living here in the U.S.? Next, if someone's not really used to it, they might say, 我不习惯这里的天气。 Okay, I'm not used to the weather here. And the person might reply, 辛苦了, all right? And that's our next phrase. 辛苦了 means basically, wow, you're working hard, hang in there, you're, you know, you're having a tough time, right? 辛苦了,辛苦了. So you'll often hear people say that. And you could say it to other people when you see someone, you know, working really hard, they've worked, they've just worked a 12-hour shift or something. You could be like, 哇,辛苦了。 And, you know, if someone worked a 12-hour shift, they must be 很厉害, okay? So 厉害 is our next phrase. And it means formidable. And we do have a hot words episode on this. I'll put this on the end screen of this video. You can check it out if you want to understand it more deeply. But you're going to hear that a lot. Like if you go to Taiwan, maybe if you go to China, I'm not sure. But in Taiwan, they said a lot. If you go to Taiwan to learn Chinese and someone sees you studying or they see or hear you speak in Chinese or something like that, they might say 哇,厉害,很厉害, right? It means very formidable, literally. But it basically means you're awesome, all right? It's a compliment. They're giving you a compliment, basically. You might not really be awesome, okay? Don't get too 自大, right? But, yeah, it's someone giving you a compliment. And, you know, if you have been studying Chinese or you've been working hard at whatever, another thing people might say to you is 加油, which means add oil, literally add oil. But it's another way of saying, oh, you know, go for it. Like, keep going. You're doing well, all right? We've got another Hot Words episode on it. I'll put it on the end screen of this video. Thumbnail looks like this where we fully explain it. But basically, yeah, it's a way, it's a mode of encouragement. You might hear it at sporting events. People going 加油,加油,加油. Or you might hear it at a political event, right? Someone says 加油. The crowd says 加油 to their favorite political candidate. I mean, you'll hear that in Taiwan. Certainly, you probably won't hear that in China. But moving on. All right, to finish off, we have some food vocabulary, OK? So let's say you're going to a restaurant or you want to go to a restaurant. It's getting towards dinner time. You might say, if you're hungry, you might say 我饿了, OK? Which means I'm hungry. And the word 饿 for hungry, just imagine you've been punched in the stomach. And you might make a sort of noise like that, like 饿, OK? For newbies, that's kind of a way of remembering it. It's not 我饿了, OK? It's 我饿了. And you've got the 了 there as well, indicating a change of state. You weren't hungry before, but now you're hungry, OK? 我饿了. And if you're thirsty, same thing. You could say 我渴了, OK? 我渴了. That means I am thirsty. And because you're hungry and thirsty, you go to the restaurant. And let's just say you eat a big plate of whatever. And you drink some nice drinks, but you're still not done. A really easy way of saying that you want some more is 再一个, OK? I want one more. Again, one more. Or 再一杯. If you've been drinking something and you want more tea or more of a nice cold drink, 再一杯. That's a really nice way, easy way to say I want one more. Obviously, you might want to soften it with some nice words like 服务员, 再一个可以吗? Like could I? Is it possible to get one more? 再一个可以吗? You know, soften it like that. Don't just be like 再一个! But you know, Chinese is a bit more direct than English anyway. So 再一个, 谢谢. You know, like that with a smile. That's kind of a good way of asking for more. You can just point at the thing that you want, right? If you don't know the Chinese name of the dish you ordered, you can say 再一个可以吗? All right, now you've finished eating and you are full. You can say 我吃饱了, OK? And that means I have eaten my fill. And we have the 了 particle, which indicates a change of state. And this can also be a question as well. 吃饱了吗? Someone might ask you 吃饱了吗? And you would probably say 吃饱了 if you were full and 没吃饱 if you were not full. And people in Taiwan often use this as sort of a greeting, OK? An alternative to 你好吗? is 吃饱了吗? Especially if you go to someone's house, they might say 你吃饱了吗? And because they're kind of implying that if you're not full, they might make you some food. All right. And so you can just politely reply 吃饱了, 吃饱了. All right. So 我们吃饱了, we're leaving the restaurant, we're going home. And to say goodnight, we are going to say 晚安, which just means night peaceful. OK, same as 早安 means morning peace. 晚安 means night peace. And it's a nice way to say goodnight or say goodbye in the evening. You know, you could use it to be like literally goodnight. You're going to bed or like, oh, it's the evening and we are parting ways. 晚安, bye bye. All right, guys, that is the video for today. Please subscribe. If you are new, please leave your comments, suggestions, example sentences below or anything you think I've made a mistake in. Do leave that below as well. We will see you next week in the next video. Bye bye.