Go Home

Welcome to Speak Chinese Now. 我是李老师。 Today, we're going to talk about how to say to go home properly or appropriately. In English, the go is 去, so home is 家. I often hear students say 去家,我去家. You have to say 我回家 in Chinese. 回 looks like this, a zigzag. Used in the ancient time, it means water. Water goes start from here, loop around, loop around, it goes back to the same spot. So that's your home, home base. So you have to say 回家,回家 in Chinese. Never say 去家, never, never, never say 去家. So 回 simplified look like this, two boxes, loop around. Just think about water starts from here, the outside rain goes that way, and the water starts from here, and it goes through, meanders, and then goes back to the same spot. So that's called 回家. Remember, every time you want to say to go home, you say 回家, you never say 去家. So 回 is to return. In this one, it's traditional. On the right-hand side, this is traditional. It added zigzag, zigzag, that is 走. 走 is to walk, it's movement. So adding a lot more information to 回. It means to return, to go back, right? There are other meanings to respond, like for instance 回信, to return, around, go around, so don't worry about that. And just learn 回 at this moment is to return home, to go back home, right? Okay, we're going to talk about 家. 家 is very interesting. As you see, start, let's see, start from here. It looks like a roof, right, on top, and down the bottom, it looks like an animal. To me, it is, it is an animal. It's a pig or a hog, it's called 屎, right? It used to be, look like this, right? It also is coming from the sound of 家, it's a board. So any kind of, I guess, a pig and wild pig, they're all related to 家. What is that, you know? So what's happening here? As you see, there's a building right here inside, this is 家. 家, if you break it apart on top, right, and that is called 宝盖头, 宝盖头. So you can say, maybe you can think about it as a roof with a chimney. So it has someone living under the roof. So if a roof without chimney, most of the time, it's related to dead, dead people. So you want to make sure when you write 家, you add a little chimney there, which means the little dot means that the people actually live in it. Then plus the bottom. Bottom looks like this. So it's hard to write the bottom. I have 家 right here. If you want to learn how to write 家 properly, this is how you do it. Start from the dot and go through the left-hand side, and then finish your, let's see, the rooftop, which is 宝盖头. Then you work on the bottom, the bottom pig. One line at a time, you shouldn't be able to get it wrong. So because there's so many lines, it's very rare for my students to get it right at first time, how to really break it down. So as you see, I call this the pig's nose or pig's head. There's a pig's nose, and there's a pig's back, and two legs kicking, and there's tails curled behind. So this way, they're able to write 家 properly. Now, how do you say return home or go home? 回家. There you go, 家. 家 also has other meaning as well, like a meaning expert. For instance, 艺术家. 艺术家 is related to people that are artists, let's say artists. Or 科学家, scientists. So 家 has other meaning as well. But now, when you say 回家, it means going home. 家 also means household. It means home, means house, so anything to do with house or home. If you add a 人 behind it, 家人, it means family member. If you say 家庭, it's a family. Let's say 家人, 家庭, 回家. What else can you come up with 家? If you know anything related to 家, you can type up in the comments section. I've just started this channel about a month ago. I've received so much support. I appreciate it very much. Please subscribe and also click like. Tell me what you'd like to learn so this way I can make videos for you to learn. I appreciate it very much. You want to make sure to subscribe. We're going to work on a little bit how to formulate phrases. Everything you learn, a lot of times you just learn one character. You can't use them. You need to be able to learn one character knowing how to formulate phrases and then put it into sentences and start making your own sentences. It's active learning. Let's say 我回家. Never say 我去家 like we discussed. 家, as you see how it's written up here. You can say 回我家. Take a look. 我回家. If you just move things around, 回我家, 回 is return. You basically go back to my house. 回我家. You can use Chinese characters. If you flip them and the order changes, it means a different thing. It's very interesting. 回我家. How do you say return to your house? Go back to your house. 回你家. How do you say go back to his house? 回他家. Or go back to her house. 回他家. We're going to work on 去. Let's say 去我家. 去我家. It is to go to my house or my place. 去我家. The 去 is going a different direction. 去 is going out. 回 is return. Anytime you think about 回, it's return. 去 is to go. The direction is different. 去他家. Go back to his place. Now you can say 去朋友家. That all works. 去我家 works too. If you guys are out, you're not in your house, you just say 去我家吧. 去我家吧. Let's go to our house, my house. So to play with 去 and 回, and so don't be afraid to make mistakes. Just try it. And just remember, if you want to say go back to my house, you say 我回家. Go back to my place. So you don't say 我去家. Well, that's all I have for today. Keep learning and I appreciate your support. 谢谢! 下次见!