Language (Re)Learning - An Adoptee Pod

I'm revamping the podcast. All of my lesson episodes have gone away (though if you wanted to revisit some of the content, let me know). My new goal for the podcast is the create a space where we discuss aspects of language learning, language self-teaching tips, linguistic culture, and aspects of adoptee identity development. I'm shifting my content and it might take awhile so consider this a "under construction" sign. However, if you're an adoptee and super interesting in how language impacts identity, please stay subscribed and updated. 

transcript： https://docs.google.com/document/d/1023lfqppxiQKu3xEejNafCi65LmzeVmvLtm9V_mgPQM/edit?usp=sharing

Episode Description:

This episode goes over the main question words and how they fit into the sentence structure that we learned in episode 7. Please see the transcript for more sentences, to see characters, vocab list and to follow along.

NOTE: zai4 na3er 在哪儿, which means “where” and is in the episode, uses zai4 在 but the phrase na3er 哪儿 can be used as a question word on its own as an object in the sentence. I forgot to mention this in-episode. For example you can say “Ni3 qu4 na3er?” 你去哪儿？ which means “Where are you going?”

Words used in this episode:

饺子 jiao3zi - dumpling

谁 shei2 - who

什么 shen2me - what

什么时候 shen2me shi2hou4 - when

(在) 哪儿 (zai4) na3er - where

为什么 wei4shen2me - why

and

怎么 zen3me - how (often times this will be translated to "what" but it has a specific use aside from 什么）

Today we’re going over the basic sentence pattern in mandarin grammar. We’ll go over the Subject + Verb + Object form (we use this in English!) and do a few example sentences together. This is the building block to understanding how to make more complicated and conversational sentences!

Vocabulary used in this episode:

吃 - chī to eat

看 - kàn to see/to watch

喜欢 - xǐhuān to like

做 (+饭) zuò=to make, to do + fàn = to cook

肉 - ròu meat

电视 - diànshì TV

猫 - māo cat

See this document for bonus sentences and the transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ok8i5K78tMQw6cyzBfoDh14EsjYM_yYmCmSjylfueDU/edit?usp=sharing

transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ClgtdZJcnqOC0iYtz9N3mYqZ08yjiSLArmcPqdEZaDY/edit?usp=sharing

Shou4shang1 受伤 (+了）- to be injured/hurt, to have injured yourself/hurt yourself .... note: there are other words for injure depending on the nuance of the situation, this is the most basic to talk about physical injury 

yi1yuan4 医院 - hospital 

yi1sheng1 医生 - doctor

ji2zhen3shi4 急诊室 - emergency room 

gei3 (phone number) da3 dian4hua4 给（#)打电话** - give (phone #) a call or "call (#)" 。。。e.g. 给911打电话 = call 911

**you can shorten this to (emergency #)打电话

qing3 dai4wo3 qu4 yi1yuan4 请带我去医院 - please bring me/take me to the hospital. 

yi1yuan4 zai4 na3er/na3li3 医院在哪儿/哪里? - where is the hospital 

noun+在哪儿？ = where is (noun)? 

ji2zhen3shi4 zai4 na3er? 急诊室在哪儿？ - where is the emergency room? 

I encourage you all to be emergency ready in any language and at any place that you're living even if you already feel confident and have been there a long time! 

In today’s episode we talk about why it isn’t very natural to say “ni3hao3” to someone you’re friends with or someone that you know already and what types of greetings you might use instead. Then we’ll talk about how to say thank you and of course how to say goodbye.

See a full vocab list, transcript, and more at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k7vP5oazQDcBNPYMOQGVt0scNWPU-PlCJi05mwrLVlk/edit?usp=sharing

If you have any questions or comments you can always send them to [email protected] and have them answered on air or in private.

Please subscribe, like, and share with those who this might be helpful for.

EPISODE 5 TRANSCRIPT: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N2gRpzuW-WwSNcAmQqrgXbPvRNPbkCptK2RgNUuiFOI/edit?usp=sharing

In today’s episode we’re going to talk a little bit about pinyin, vowels, pronunciation and how to learn or figure out pronunciation of words we’ve newly encountered. We won’t go over the actual vowel pronunciation step by step but here’s a great link to Chinese Pod’s very in-depth pronunciation guide. In order to actually practice, go to the guide provided. If you have any questions or suggestions please email [email protected]

Please take a look:

Pronunciation Guide:

https://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/2

This is part 2/2 of a lesson on personal pronouns. We also take a listener question about how to improve tones and use them in real life situations. 

Today we are going to talk about how to make these pronouns possessive. So how do you say “My” or mine “Yours” “His” “Hers” “Ours” in mandarin.

We're going to start doing transcripts/notes and extra practice questions that will be attached to each episode. Please see the following link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Iy7Piot2MJEXIHE4j2TVHHxnrocvHEcCi5SyT1HYtM/edit?usp=sharing

Today we cover personal pronouns and also have a little chat about gender pronoun conversations in the US and how that does or doesn't translate to China/mandarin language. 

Example sentences：

1。 我爱你。Wǒ aì nǐ. I love you

2。他们来这里。Tāmen lái zhèlǐ. They come here

3。我们吃饭了。Wǒmen chīfàn le. We ate. 

Next time we will cover how to make pronouns in to possessive forms! Look out for Part 2/2 coming soon!

This episode goes over the numbers 1-10 as well as how to make larger numbers. Then we explain measure words and what they are. There are tons of measure words so we only go over 3. 个，本， 份

Here's a few links that go along with this lesson. Thank you to Isabelle Frank for recording our example sentences this week!

Practice these aloud! Practicing aloud is the key to getting comfortable speaking and using mandarin language (or any new language for that matter). 

Numbers

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-cnn56PlMfEJom88gVWl_GxZPHtyyGMuHR98y8YELE4/edit?usp=sharing

List of Mandarin measure words

https://employees.csbsju.edu/hjakubowski/classes/ChinaStudyAbroad/list_of_chinese_measure_words.htm

This episode’s example sentences:

In this lesson we go over a bit about mandarin as "Chinese" language, tones as a building block, and apply them to some common greetings. 

*Note: in the pod I refer to the four forms of "ma" as the same word but...they aren't the same "word" they are the same basic "sound" that are made into 4 different words based on tones. Whoops!

The tones in pinyin look like this ā á ǎ à and always go over vowels! Remember, tones are a building block but perfect, emphasized tones are not necessary to be understood and as you start forming full sentences, we won't need to be perfect about them all the time.

The greetings we learned in this episode are:

（你）吃了吗？ Nǐ chī le ma? - Have you eaten?  

早上好 Zǎoshang hǎo - Good morning 

今天（你）怎么样？Jīntiān (nǐ) zěnmeyàng? - How are you doing today? 

Please like, subscribe, and share! Submit language or cultural questions to [email protected] 

If you'd like to be a contributor or teacher on the podcast please email the same address as above. 

This is the Language Re-Learning Podcast

Where we create podcast episodes for adoptees seeking to relearn their mother tongues.

My goal is to teach practical, everyday language lessons to teach grammar, vocabulary, and sentence building.