Spring Break 春假 -1

Hello, welcome to Speak Chinese Now. 我是李老师。 We just had our spring break. In New York, normally it's in the middle of April. Then we take a week off. Students sometimes travel, sometimes they stay home. So normally when we get back from spring break, this is what I do. I ask them how was their spring break. So the structure here, we're about to learn. It is a general sentence structure that can be used for pretty much everything. Now we're working on spring break. And this structure can be used for other things such as birthday or Christmas or any holiday, right? Let's go ahead and get started. So what do you think it is? Spring break. Which word do you think it's a spring? That's right. Which word is break or holiday or vacation? There you go. Let's go ahead and say it together. So you ask people in English, you just say how was. How was your spring break? You use was. But in Chinese, we use time spent. So normally, time passed or time spent, it has to be this double standing person, we call it, or 双丽人. Once you see 过的, right after 过的, you have to add adjectives, right? Normally sentences like this. 你的春假过得怎么样? Structure is your spring break spent how? In English, you have to switch how in the front and say how was your spring break. This is how we ask. So let's go ahead and say it together. Meaning it's not too bad, pretty good, right? So let's go ahead and say we can learn a few descriptive words, adjectives, right? So the sentence structure, it is 你的春假过得怎么样? Like I said, in Chinese sentences, you answer the questions pretty easy. You just drop everything from the question. 你怎么样 is where you need to put your answer, right? So let's say 我的春假 My spring break 过得 Time spent, you can say 特别好 Excellent 特别好, right? You can probably use both hands, say 特别好,特别好, right? 那非常好 非常好 is, you know, super duper, pretty good, right? Very good. Now normally students will say 很好 我的春假过得很好 So they know 很好, that's why I didn't put any pinyin there, 很好 And another thing is 挺好的 So this is something you can just say 挺好的 Fine, you know, it's been good, nothing goes wrong. And so the purple colored is pretty good, it's also positive. The blue colored is getting in the middle of it. Kind of, it's okay, it's okay, not too bad, not too good, right? Let's go ahead and say it together. 还不错 The Chinese C is Ts sound. In English, we have the same sound, the Ts sound, like rats, cats, Ts in the back. But when you need to bring that Ts sound in the front, that's our ts sound. So 还不错, let's say 还不错,还不错 还不错 meaning nothing went wrong. Nothing was wrong. Then direct translation would be not too bad, not bad, okay? And 马马虎虎, most people can learn this quickly. Say 马马虎虎, it's in the middle of everything. 马 is horse, 虎 is tiger. 马马虎虎, not sure where that's coming from, but 马马虎虎. And it's like, you don't know it's tigers, you don't know it's horses, so it's kind of in the middle, it's okay, it's okay. So let's say it together, 马马虎虎, 马马虎虎. Then the darker color is more of a, um, not doing that great. So let's say 还行吧, it's all right, it's all right, not that great. Let's say 还行吧, 还行吧, um, but it's really light. 还行吧, 行, and put the stress there, 还行吧. If something went wrong, you don't want to talk about it, you just say 别提了, 别提了, 别提了, 别提了, don't want to talk about it. I guess when you don't want to talk about it, it's just not that great, not that good, so 别提了, 别提了. The other one, you say 不怎么样, 不怎么样 meaning not very good, something's just not right, 不怎么样. All right, I'm going to start asking you questions, see if we can put this together. 你的春假过得怎么样? That's from the slides. 你的春假过得怎么样? 怎么样. Like I said, it's just in Chinese sentences, you listen to how the question was asked, then you just use exactly the same structure, you flip 你 to 我, then everything else, you just drop it down, 怎么样. 怎么样 is how, that's where you need to put your answer there, right? Let's go ahead and try it. 你的春假过得怎么样? If you just, you know, not too bad, you say 不错, 不错, because Chinese people are very modest. If it's pretty good, they normally say, oh, not bad, not bad. So they're kind of just not saying, oh my gosh, it's so good. They never say that. So let's say 不错, 不错, 不错, 不错, not bad, not bad, right? So I'm going to ask the question, see how you answer it, all right? 你的春假, like I said, the 春假 can be anything, can be changed to weekend, 周末, 周末, right? If you didn't have your spring break, I'm going to switch it to 周末. 周末 is weekend. 你的周末过得怎么样? You can say 不错, 不错, and then let's see. We're switching 春假 to 周末. 你的周末过得怎么样? If it's really good, right? You did something fantastic. You just say 我的周末过得特别好,特别好,特别好. Or you can say 我的周末过得非常好,非常好. Or you can say 我的周末过得很好,我周末过得很好. Or you can say 我的周末过得挺好的,挺好的. We're switching 春假, 春假, spring break to 周末. 周末 is weekend. I'm not sure how many people had spring break, so you can switch it to 春假 to anything pretty much. You can switch to birthday, which is 生日, right? 生日. So you can say 你的生日过得怎么样? You can ask how was your birthday? And you can just say 我的生日过得非常好,我的生日过得挺好的,挺好的. If it's not that good, it's okay. Then you just say 我的生日过得还不错,还不错. If you're not too impressed with your own birthday celebration, you can just say 我的生日 过得马马虎虎,马马虎虎,不怎样,不怎样,不怎么样,不怎么样,不怎么样. Not very good, right? 不怎么样,不怎么样, right? Let's see if you can switch to 春假 to something else. We had 周末, 周末 is weekend, and 生日 is birthday. So should we change it to something else? Let's say, let's change it back to 春假, spring break, right? Like I said, the center structure is there. You just kind of change 春假 to anything you like to talk about. We're going to change it back to 春假. Let's say 你的春假过得怎么样? You can say, we're going to go from top to bottom. Oops, top to bottom. Say 我的春假过得特别好,特别好, both hands, 特别好. You can say 我的春假过得非常好,非常好, really good, super, super duper. Normally people just say 我的春假过得很好,很好. Or you can say 我的春假过得挺好的,挺好的,挺好的. Different degrees, you can say 我的春假过得还不错,还不错, pretty good, nothing went wrong, 还不错. Or you can say 我的春假过得马马虎虎,马马虎虎,马马虎虎. And the three down here, they're kind of negative, not really positive. So you say 还行吧,还行吧, it's okay. 你的春假过得怎么样? 我的春假过得还行吧,还行吧。 你的春假过得怎么样? 别提了,别提了,别提了, meaning it's not going well. It didn't go very well. 别提了. Or you can say 你的春假过得怎么样? 我的春假过得不怎么样,不怎么样, not that great. Right. So I want you to go ahead and practice and switching 春假 to any occasion you like, like a birthday, weekend, even summer break, anything. You can just say, use the same structure. And the descriptive words, the different degrees are here. You can add more, but these are just the basics. All right. I hope you enjoyed today's lesson. All right. 谢谢,下次见。