In this lesson, I talk a little about discovering the unique logic of a new language. In the dialogue, Ah-Ming (阿明) and Xiao-Li (小李) decide to break the law.
One of my favorite things about learning a new language is discovering the unique way it expresses ideas: the logic, the way of thinking that the language makes possible.
For example, take the word get in English. There are so many ways English speakers use this word, including to say "I got it!" when we have an idea or a solution to a problem. The interesting thing is that there is no equivalent word in Mandarin. So what do Chinese speakers say in a similar situation? They might say: 我知道了！(Wǒ zhīdàole) which literally is closer to "I know."
This is just one of the infinite ways that Mandarin and English differ in how they express ideas. Imagine trying to speak and think without using the words get, it, yes, a, or the, and you can start to get a sense of how different it is to think in Mandarin (none of these words has a direct equivalent in Chinese).
And of course, it goes the other way too: Chinese is full of words and expressions that Mandarin speakers rely on routinely in their speech and in their thought, which don't exist at all in English. Some of these are grammatical, like when you 把 (bǎ) something -- a way of expressing a relationship between a person and a thing that is acted upon. Some are shorthand phrases, like 怎麼辦? (Zěnme bàn?) which literally means something like "how to do" but expresses a meaning more like "What should be done?" or "What are we going to do?" often said when a seemingly intractable problem suddenly arises.
The only way to start to develop a feel for the logic of Mandarin is to hear examples in context, over and over again -- and each time you hear them, to feel or picture the meaning, connecting the meaning in your mind to the sounds, so that slowly but surely the sounds themselves are imbued with meaning. Which is what Mandarin From the Ground Up is all about.
Dialogue transcript (Chinese characters only)
Dialogue transcript (w/ pinyin and translation)
Want to support the podcast? ★ Support this podcast ★
Thanks for listening!