How’s the weather today? Is it hot in summer in your country? Learn other phrases and vocabulary related to weather and seasons. Lesson’s vocabulary includes such words as ‘today’, ‘yesterday’, ‘tomorrow’, names of the months and numbers from 1 to 12. Learn about four seasons of the year: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and much more! Become a premium subscriber to download ALL 252+ audio lessons with full PDF lesson transcripts and worksheets.
Learn on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | TuneIn | How to Learn
Hi Serge,
Keep up the good work!
Just one question about the transcripts and worksheets though. I notice you use traditional characters, any reason why you prefer these over the simplified ones? I have started already with simplified. This isn’t a big problem as I can convert any differences as part of the learning process. I was just wondering what your opinion was.
Well, I thought about it. Maybe it’s better to use simplified characters as majority of people who learn Chinese nowdays plan to have something to do with Mainland China, like business, travel, etc.
In fact, I do not emphasize written language in my lessons as I don’t really know how to teach writing through Podcasting.
My reason for using Traditional characters is that, I believe, they are more universal, people from Mainland China can read them and people from Taiwan, HK and other Chinese abroad can also read them. If I use simplified characters, it will be only readable by Chinese from Mainland China. Another reason is that traditional characters are more authentic, they represent Chinese writing culture which has 5000 years. Simplified characters were adopted only after 1949 in order to eliminate illiteracy among Chinese population, because traditional characters are too complex to learn, they were simplified.
An update here. Now both simplified and traditional versions are available.
I’ve been learning Mandarin for 18 months now and this week’s subject in class is weather. What a great lesson and resource. Thank you Serge.
Nice lessons Serge, they have really improved my spoken Chinese so thank you very much!
Hi,
Serge, thanks for the interesting podcasts. I use them myself and also recommend them to my students who are learning Chinese.
I noticed you decided to go ahead and update with both simplified and traditional characters. I think that is a great choice. You said above that traditional characters are more universal, but I would like to point out that it is untrue that most Mainland Chinese can read traditional characters. In fact, most people under the age of 60 could read many traditional characters!
Megan
Serge,
A Chinese friend adds “le” to “Xia4yu3” and “Xia4xue3.” In other words, he says “Xia4yu3 le” for “It is raining” and says “Xia4xue3 le” for “It is snowing.” Is adding “le” a regional variation or what?
Thanks for everything, Serge.
John
Nihao John!
It’s a very good question about particle ‘le’.
Basically, particle ‘le’ is used when there is a change in the situation, e.g. from not being something, to being something, from not having to having, from not knowing to knowing, etc.
So in this particular example, we’ve got xia4yu3(下雨) to rain (rain pours down), so when I see it’s raining now (and it wasn’t a few minutes ago), I will say xia4yu3 le!(下雨了！)-it’s raining now!
This “now” part can really emphasize the use of particle ‘le’, so it’s not just raining in any abstract time and place, but it just started to rain here and now.
Same is for xia4xue3(下雪) and xia4xue3 le!(下雪了！) One can say with excitement, while looking out of the window, xia4xue3 le!(下雪了！)–IT’S SNOWING NOW! YEY! Or, perhaps, OH, NO, IT’s SNOWING NOW :(.
In both cases, he/she will say xia4xue3 le(下雪了), because there was an instant change of the situation “from not snowing to snowing” (based on when the person sees it).
If you wish, you can challenge me with some more examples using particle ‘le’ and I will help you correct them and explain them if there is a mistake.
Hope this is helpful!
Xiexie,
Serge
你好 Serge!
I am a newbie/beginner and have really liked your lessons so far. When asked a question, and you would like to answer “yes”, when or why would you use shì versus shìde. What’s the difference, and is one preferred over the other.
Also, how would you answer “no”.
Xiexie!
Jeremy
Nihao Jeremy,
When a question is asked and you need to say ‘yes’, you can say 1) dui4(对)-yes, right or 2)shi4(是)/shi4de(是的)-yes, it is.
In most cases, you would just say dui4(对). For shi4(是) or shi4de(是的), you would use it for ‘yes,sure, it is like that’, ‘yes, it is’ etc.
There is no difference between shi4(是) and shi4de(是的), de is just added at the end for more emphasis and it doesn’t carry any meaning. Another example would be hao3(好) vs. hao3de(好的). It’s just something similar to ‘alight’ and ‘alrighty’ in English. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alrighty).
Hope this answers your question :), and if you have more bring them in.
Best,
Serge
Hi Serge 老师,
Thanks for your lessons. I’ve subscribed for a while and I am just going slowly, and am up to Lesson 15.
On my iPhone I notice I can change Siri to mandarin, while still using English for the phone itself. So now I am able to ask about the weather, to make phone calls, ask her to play my music – in mandarin. Although I can’t seem to get her to send a text message…. Yet.
It’s really encouraging! I’ve also made friends in China, and communicate with Skype, and I’m complimented on my pronunciation, quite often.
So, thanks again. I am really enjoying the course.
Cheers from Australia.
再见
Lex
Sent from my iPhone
Nin hao Serge,
I would like to thank you for your great job and all your effort, I really appreciated your lessons.
Xie Xie.
Keita