Put On Some Clothes

Welcome to Speak Chinese Now. 我是李老师。 Last couple of lessons, we learned about colors. And in the end of these lessons, we'll be able to put the colors, the clothes, everything together. So you'll be able to describe what you're wearing or others are wearing. Right. Let's get started. Clothes. Any kind of clothes in general term is called the 衣服. 衣服. As you see, 服, it's very light. Some people would say 衣服. It's okay, too. I think there's people from southern part of China like to have a stress to say 衣服. Then people from north, from where I came from, Beijing, would just say 衣服. Now, for 衣服, there's a verb that you definitely need to learn. This verb is 穿. Let's say it together. 穿 is to wear, to put on, right? C-H-U-A-N, first tone, 穿, 穿. All right, let's go ahead. See, right here, here's a verb, 穿, 穿, 穿, 穿, right? Then to wear, to put on. As you see, I often tell my students, the top right here actually means cave. The bottom right here, start from the horizontal line down the bottom, it's a teeth or tooth. So they're saying, what cave have to do with, what teeth have to do with a cave, have to do with wearing clothes? So here's my story. I help them to remember how to use this 穿, how to actually write it. Otherwise, they can't put this together. Just so many dots and lines, a vertical line, a horizontal line. So on top, as I call it, there's a roof, right? Has the two little, this looks like a number eight. So that piece, I would call a radical or index. It's a 穴, 穴为的穴, or 洞穴的穴. So it means a cave. Let's say one of the meaning is a cave. Down the bottom, this part, it means the teeth or tooth. So I said, wow, imagine in the past, you were in the cave. It's so cold. You got to put on some clothes. Otherwise, your teeth are dotting. So they laugh at me. Then they're able to remember 穿. Okay, so let's go ahead and move to, oops, the t-shirt has been blocked. But it's okay. You know, it's a t-shirt underneath it. 穿, let's say, 衬衫, 衬衫, or 衬衣, both referring to button-down shirt, button-down shirt. So for the, you know, there's button and down, has buttons buttoned up. So we call it 衬衫, or 衬衣, either or. So you say 穿, 衬衫, or 穿, 衬衣. Right, put on shirts. Now we're going to move to t-shirt. T-shirt, I guess, in the past, t-shirt is a thing that in the West, in America, Chinese never wore worn t-shirts until, I guess, in 1980s, maybe. Then t-shirts started going to China or around the world. The people started wearing t-shirt. The Chinese had to find a way to translate it. So they use the same sound, the t-shirt, but we say 替序, 替序. You can say 替序衫, add a 衫, right here, 衫, 替序衫, or 替序. Both are okay. Let's say 穿衬衫, 穿, 衬衣, 穿, 替序. Okay, I want you to pay attention to these two particles, these two, or three. And the index, or you could also call it radicals. On the left-hand side, they look the same. They look the same, yeah. It has two little dots right here. These particles actually coming from this character, E, E for the E. If you make this, shorten it, kind of squeeze it together, it turn into that. So that's why it has two things right there, okay. Okay, let's say 穿 to wear, to put on. We learned this, let's say it together. 穿衬衫, 穿裤子, 穿裙子, 穿裙子, 穿裤子, 穿衬衫, right? Now, there are more 裤子-related vowels. 穿牛仔裤, 牛仔 is cowboy. 裤, of course, is pants, or trousers, right? I think pants are translated into American English, it's okay, it means long pants. But I think in Britain, pants may be referring to underwear. So they say trousers, right? Trousers is hard to say, but it means the same thing, long pants, right, long pants. America would call it pants, but in England, we call it trousers. 穿牛仔裤, 穿牛仔裤, wearing that cowboy pants, now wearing trousers. 穿裤子, 穿裤子, 穿短裤, 穿短裤, 短 is short. Do you know how to say long? 长, so you can say 穿长裤, long pants, long trousers, 穿长裤, or 穿裤子, both are okay, but 短裤, shorts, you have to say 穿短裤. If you just say 穿裤子, it's right here, it's long trousers or pants, you have to say 穿短裤, right, shorts. So we just learned skirt, 裙子, how do you say short skirt? 短裙, you got it, short, 短, then you add a 裙, right, skirt. How do you say long skirt? 长裙, right, 长, 长, and 短, 长 referring to like a length, how long it is, 短 is short, short hair, short arm, short pants, you use 短, right. If you describe people's height, then you use 高 and 矮, those are different, then 长 and 短, right, in America, in English, I think a short and long, they're referring to, they can say people are short, short people, we don't say short people, we don't say 短, we say 矮, so we can talk about that later. All right, we're going to move to 裙子. Let's say it together, 裙子, 裙子 referring to any kind of skirt or dress, right, then 长裙, long skirt, right here, look at this flowy long skirt, it's called a 裙, 长裙, or you can say 裙子, it works, 裙子 or 长裙. 穿裙子, 穿裙子, if you say 穿裙子, it can refer to all three, 穿裙子, but if you want to be specific, articulating what kind of a 裙子, then you have to say 穿长裙, long skirt, 穿短裙, short skirt, or it can be mini skirt, 短裙, or 穿连衣裙, 连 referring to connect, 衣 is clothes or the top, 裙 is the skirt, basically connects the clothes and the skirt, that's why it's called 连衣裙, 衣 referring to top, 连衣裙, let's go ahead and say this together, 穿裙子, 穿长裙, 长裙 is right here, 穿短裙 right here, 穿连衣裙, you got that? Well, that's all we have for today, make sure you watch my other videos and especially the previous ones about colors, because we're going to learn how to put colors and dresses or clothes together to describe what people are wearing, so if you have not subscribed to my channel, please do so to support Chinese language learning. All right, 谢谢, 下次见!