chi - eat...just checking on spellings there...chi and ci has a difference of pronounciation...the broken Mandarin is 'ci4' which is how we say it here...but the proper Mandarin is 'chi1'...learning languages is always better if one can hear how the words are pronounced...

erm...zhe4 ge gu4 shi shi4 bu2 shi4 you3 dong4 wu? is the China Mandarin version with a lot of natural sounds...i think this is correct...gua? need some help from China ppl please!

zhe4 ge4 gu4 shi4 shi4 bu2 shi4 you3 dong4 wu4? is the Taiwan Mandarin version...there is a slight difference here...

So much education!  Thanks for everyone particpiating.  I'm really glad that it seems others are getting something out of this as well.


I actually think usin - / \/ \ is a really good idea instead of 1,2,3,4 - it is much easier to read as I try to pronounce these as I go.   So - good idea, lets all switch to this if you want.  By the way - I don't use those because in theory by the time I'm typing it, it has already been established, but I do appreciate the questions being asked with the tones still there for a reminder.

And your answer is YES.   (And I am going to try some fancy sentence combining now thanks to yulien....)

* * *

Zhe ge gu shi you yi ge lian wu shu de ren he zhe ge gu shi you hi ge <alivenotdead.com> de ren.  

Dan shi wo bu shi zai gu shi li ye zhe ge gu shir mei you dong wu.  Bu shir ai qing gu shir.

* * *

Add any corrections you wish.  And ask questions.

<br />

That's really great info to point out, thanks.

GREAT JOB MARK COMBINING THE SENTENCE!!!!! *kudos*


if i speak the sentence...this is how i will say it...but again, i'mMalaysian Chinese...my language is all jumble up!!! correct it ifANYTHING IS WRONG!!!!


这不是个爱情故事。
Zhe\ bu/ shi\ ge ai\ qing/ gu\ shi\.

CHANGES: i would start with this sentence first because it's a statement that sums up the whole story genre.


这个故事里有一个炼武术的人和一个<alivenotdea.com> 得人员。
Zhe/ ge\ gu\ shi\ liV youV yi/ ge\ lian\ wuV shu\ de ren/ he/ yi/ ge\ <alivenotdead.com> de ren/ yuan/.

CHANGES: if 'he/' is use, don't have to repeat the subject again.
Zhe ge gu shi you yi ge lian wu shu de ren he zhe ge gu shi you yi ge <alivenotdead.com> de ren.

AND 'ren/' become 'ren/ yuan/' make the noun from just a person (ren/) to a memeber (ren/ yuan/) instead.


但是我没有在故事里，故事里也没有动物。
Dan\ shi\ woV mei/ youV zai\ gu\ shi\ liV, gu\ shi\ liV yeV mei/ youV dong\ wu\.

CHANGES: use 'mei/ youV' is better than 'bu/ shi\'. i knowboth means 'no' or 'not', but using just 'bu/ shi\' is more toanswering yes or no situation. for a sentence that you wanna say youare not in it, 'mei/ youV' is a better word to use.

AND as for 'ye' (nor, whichcan also mean 'and' in 'neither nor/either or' context), it's normallyuse to combine 2 sentence that state the same situation. so, thesubject has to be mentioned as in '...gu\ shi\ liV, gu\ shi\ liV yeVmei/ youV...' instead of joining the 2 subject into one sentence likeit is use for 'he/'.

(i'm not sure if i explainclearly...and not sure if tht's the correct grammer....so...feel freeto 'scracth' it!!! then, i can learn as well!!!)


so, sounds good???

I remember using ci in sentences to do with travel and tickets. I can't quite remember if it's used when saying when a train (as an example) would arrive or if it is the measure word for tickets.. It's been a few years since my one year of Mandarin at uni.

ok ... i'm a question hog but now you say there's a wushu person thatpiques my interest. but since it seems from your website that the onlywushu friend you have, actually the only friend you have, is patricklee, i guess i'll ask the obvious:

patrick shi\ bu\/ shi\ zai\ zhe\ ge\ gu\ shi\ li\/?

Hai/ you\/ zhe\ ge\ gu\ shi\ shi\ zhen- de\ hai\/ shi\  jia\/ de\?

I just realized that the tones for "this" should be:  zhe\ ge\. oops.

and the tones for "story" should be gu\ shi\.  oops again.  the tones i'm really bad at.

i believe you know all the words in the first question, translatedinto:  Is Patrick in this story? Word by word: Patrick is or isnot in this story?

For the second question, I added some connectors:

Hai/ you\/ = in addition, pronounced "high yoh"
zhen- = real, true, pronounced dzin, almost like howard zinn but with your tongue closer to the back of your top teeth
jia\/ = false, pronounced like it's written, with no emphasis betweeneither the i or the a, rhymes with mia from mamma mia except noemphasis on the first syllable
[the "de" after zhen de and jia de is the same "de" that was the belonging to "de"]
hai\/ shi\ = or, pronounced "high sher"

The second question means: In addition, is this story true orfalse?  Literally, word for word, it means: In addition, thisstory is real or false?

this is getting complicated ... so i'll let you ruminate. i should get to work. slave hours, here  i come.

Ai-4 = "i".
qing-2 = ching

gu\ shi\ li\/ you\/ wo\/ men/ de\ shi\ ge\ shuai\ ge- ma-? .... this IS painful....
The story includes our 4 hunks?

[ Last edited by  Lynn at 2007-6-11 02:56 PM ]

"Zhe ge gu shi you yi ge <alivenotdead.com> de zhen"

I tot the underlined word should be ren2? Which is "person". Wat is "zhen??"

Ok my attempt to ask a qn about the story:
Mark, zhe ge gu shi, shi4 gen1 na3 yi2 (originally 1 but in this sentence is 2) ge4 Alive de4 chen2 yuan2 you3 guan1?

English translation: This story pertains to which member in Alive?

1st 4 chinese words, Mark you should know already. De4 you should know

pardon the blunt broken english translation
shi gen= is pertaining
na | yi ge= which | one?
chen Yuan= member
you guan = related

Really painful when reading thru the threads....hard work. Finally get down to doing this.

Altho learning here is a good attempt, but learning language is like music, better to learn via sounds. Well it's an alternative route here...

[ Last edited by  Cloudz7 at 2007-6-11 04:16 PM ]

Patrick shi zai zhe ge gu shi li, dan shi zhe ge gu shi bu shi zhen.

Zhe bu shi ge ai qing gu shi.  Wo bu shi zi zhe ge gu shi li.

(We no longer need to include the wushu or alive not dead comments because that led us to Patrick)

Thanks for joining in on the questions!

Remember - all questions have to be answerable with "yes" or "no."  So, here you are asking which member it pertains to - but I can't answer yes or no.  However, we have the answer anyway in our previous answer.   Patrick shi zai zhe ge gu shi li.

[ Last edited by  MarkAllen at 2007-6-12 02:08 AM ]

Lynn... can you define the words which haven't been introduced yet?    Perhaps break it down a bit because it's being formed in a way I've not seen before.  Thanks.

I am seeing... "story ...have us (our?).....    yes?"

I quit!

It just basically says "does the story includes our 4 handsome guys from alivenotdead"?.

I may head this way too....!!!  

But if I don't know the breakdown I can't respond.... for example... "li" - there are 107 possible definitions for this pinyin...... note that one is beautiful and one is bald - so match bald is beautiful after all.  

Here's a link -

http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl?word=li&searchtype=pinyin&where=whole&audio=on

So... my dilemma is simply not being sure of the order....

gu\ shi\ li\/  you\/ wo\/ men/ de\ shi\ ge\ shuai\ ge- ma-?
gu shi li - In the story
you wo men de - does it have our
shi ge - 4
shuai ge - handsome hunks?

i think i ve read enough to say i DON'T GET IT...ok you're asking...us to write a story with questions...but it would HELP if i actually knew words of Chinese like dog, cat...etc...basic stuff...no one is even teaching that you all expect that we know all this...no fair...i only know thank you and hello that does not help when every one is taking about reading and dogs and jungles...WHAT ARE THOSE WORDS!!!! teach more words (BASIC ONES like yes and no and dog and cat and other everyday words) then go in to sentence structures, grammar and how to ask questions...we are supposed to be learning but eveyone assumes we know these words...i know nothing and its not helping...this is like the 3rd thread i ve visited on learning Chinese because i wanna learn but the only thread that teached us words is the thread on Jet Li but i wana learn from other places too...i came here to see how it s being done here and to hopefully learn something different but i get nothing...because apparently we are supposed to know basic words...teach me basics...

A friend - yes... I see the confusion.  Basically... I switched the method midway through when I learned that there was another forum like this in the Jet Li forum - so I decided to combine another thread I was going to make with this one.

Basically, think of it this way - the people who know enough to speak something even if they have to look up a word are asking the questions.

The people who don't know anything need to start from post 14 in this thread.  every word used so far has been defined - and it's context.  Now, it's true, I am the one answering the questions - but every student should know how to say "yes" or "no" to every question and if you want to post your progress on following the story - PLEASE DO - just summarize what the story is so far, you can even do your own version of it.  Note that when I switched the format I was the only person I saw that was the real student following the thread, so I didn't think it would affect anyone.  And it still shouldn't you should be able to say yes and no to both and please join in.

The key is redundancy - the more times you have to say and type something in various contexts the more you KNOW it.

For example, by now, in just three days - you should definitely know zhe ge gu shi.  "This story" it's been used a ton of times.  Also - you should understand the "is or is not" question structure which xyz provided.


That said...  Maybe we should start another thread for simple basics.... I have an idea for that but I can't write any more tonight (or until the afternoon tomorrrow)... but I will.


And Lynn I will answer you question tomorrow!!!!  (and any others)

[ Last edited by  MarkAllen at 2007-6-12 02:56 PM ]

You did so well, I had to answer tonight, maybe get some more questions in tomorrow.   TEACHERS - if the tones are too much ttrouble, we can drop that.  It seemed educational, but maybe it's too much.


YES.


Patrick yi wo men shi ge shuai ge shi zai zhe ge gu shi li, dan shi zhe ge gu shi bu shi zhen de.

Zhe ge bu shi yi ge ai qing de gu shi.  Wo bu shi zi zhe ge gu shi li.

(Fix errors... I can't imagine that I would have gotten that one right.)


Okay - we'ver got a lot of characters.... what happens?  What do they do?  What do they want?

[ Last edited by  MarkAllen at 2007-6-12 03:05 PM ]

Good job on the reply, except when you say "true", it should be zhende, not zhen.  I'm not exactly sure why, but that's just the waythe phrases "true" and "false" are, respectively zhen de and jia de.

Also, "this" is "zhe ge" so you need the additional "ge" afterward, and"ge" is not generally used without something before it, so you need toput "yi" or one in front of it as a qualifier.  Again, after aiqing, you want to put the possessive "de."

To recap, then:

Patrick shi zai zhe ge gu shi li, dan shi zhe ge gu shi bu shi zhen de.

Zhe ge bu shi yi ge ai qing de go shi.  Wo bu shi zai zhe ge gu shu li.

My explanation of the grammar is lacking -- sorry. It just comes naturally for me.

I'll think of some question tomorrow.