The Honest Cabbie

Elementary: The Honest Cabbie

Why is it that despite the enormous variety in our personal experiences, we all end up having exactly the same conversation with cab drivers? You know the drill. Where are you from? Are you used to eating Chinese food? Can you use chopsticks? Like Chinese water torture, the deadening repetition invites psychological defense mechanisms just to cope, like inventing new personal histories for each encounter.

But then, just when you're about to lose faith in humanity, you run into a cabbie who is interesting, quick on his feet, and brutally honest. Our Elementary lesson for today is about exactly this situation. Like a bracing dash of cold water, it refreshes and re-motivates. Give it a listen and see if it rings true for you too.

jyh

said on

November 27, 2009

You guys are so cruel! :-)

To make such a lesson about some of the worst fears in all of us poor students of the language! I have only been studying for nearly a year and a half, so I feel that I am still due about half a year of absurd praise from Chinese cab drivers before I have to start answering tough questions as in this lesson.

A few questions now:

1) can you please expand on the tone on the second 好 in hăohāo? I can't hear it in the recording.

2) On the position of hái in "nĭ de Zhōngwén zĕnme hái zhème zāogāo"

If I wanted to say "how come you're still in China?", would that be

你怎麼還在中國嗎？

3）I didn't quite get from the podcast the conclusion of the exchange between David and Brandon regarding "for a good while" in "你還是得好好地去學習一下". Is that connotation there in the sentence or not? What added meaning does "一下" provide here?

barrister

said on

November 27, 2009

@jyh - I'll take a stab at these. (1) I think the second 好 becomes the neutral/unstressed tone. This is the same as with other words made from doubled characters including 姐姐 or 狗狗. (2) I think you should omit the 吗 since it isn't a yes/no question and 怎么 is already a question word. (3) 一下 is a verb complement that adds the meaning of "for a little while" to whichever verb precedes it. My impression is that 一下 is shorter than 一会儿, but I'm not sure on that point.

Echo

said on

November 27, 2009

@jyh,

(1)Double 好 is to soften the intonation of the sentence and also to balance the syllables(because 学习 has two syllables).

(2)Just like barrister said, the sentence would be correct when you drop 吗.

(3)一下 is used to soften the intonation of the sentence too. For example, 你去一下 sounds like an order if we drop 一下, so people add 一下 to soften their tones.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

jyh

said on

November 27, 2009

@barrister - Thanks.

(1) In the transcript the second 好 is written as hāo. This is one of the things that I was confused about. The second thing was the meaning/purpose of the double 好, which Echo explained in her reply.

(2) Oops, the 嗎 was a leftover from a hasty/lazy cut-paste-edit.

@Echo - At this point I have no ear at all for intonation in the language. I still want all elements of the sentence to have an explicit meaning. Does 一下 have an effect similar to that of adding "a bit" in english, as in "go study a bit" instead of "go study"?

@Brendan - Sorry for misspelling your name. I had a guy in my lab with the other spelling.

trevelyan

said on

November 28, 2009

@barrister, @jyh - hey guys. I think you can use either the first tone or neutral tone on the second 好. I'll check with Echo. We should have the transcript correspond to whatever is used in the recording....

Echo

said on

November 28, 2009

@jyh,

Yeah, you are right, it's just like adding "a bit".And that's why it softens the intonation too, because saying "go study a bit" sounds less harsh than "go study" in Chinese.

The second 好 should be the first tone. Like in other doubled structures, 快快、慢慢... It is like an order. We can only use the neutral tone with nouns like 狗狗、妈妈、奶奶...

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

jyh

said on

April 25, 2010

Moving up in my second pass of all the elementary-level podcasts, I am back to this one, 5 months later, still on the same sentence, but with different questions :-)

你还是得好好地去学习一下

1) I believe that 还是 has the meaning of "still" in that sentence. Right? I also think that 还 would have worked too, but 还是 was used instead because...? (a) one of those "it balances/sounds better" that I assume I will eventually start hearing some day; (b) just 'cause.

2) I am bothered by the word ordering. If I had to write that one on my own, I would probably say 你还是得去好好地学习一下 because in that form it looks more like "you must go [do stuff]", the [do stuff] here being "study well". Is that ordering correct in Chinese too? If yes, does it carry the same meaning as the one in the dialog.

jyh

said on

April 25, 2010

One more question: When David mentions the cab drivers would would greet customers "nì hào", would that actually mean anything funny? I mean none of the combinations of nì and hào characters that I can find strike me as particularly funny. We are not in 草泥马 territory here, are we?

trevelyan

said on

April 25, 2010

@jyh,

No special meaning behind it. I think they're just used to foreigners butchering the tones and when they slow things down to make themselves understood put everything into the fourth tone by way of emphasis. Have run into this a few times with cabbies. Be curious if anyone else has noticed this actually.

--dave

jyh

said on

April 26, 2010

@trevelyan - Oh, so it's just the Chinese equivalent of [some] English and American people simply talking louder to non-native-speakers of English, then. :-)

Echo

said on

April 26, 2010

@jyh,

In this sentence, both 还 or 还是 would work. You can just simply understand 还是 as 还 + 是. I think that will make things easier.

You can say 你还是得去好好地学习一下 too. The reason is : 好好 here is the coverb of 学习, so no matter where you put 去, it won't change the meaning of the sentence.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

jyh

said on

April 26, 2010

@Echo - Thank you. Re. 好好, I am going to refrain from asking the dumb question that immediately came to my mind, do some reading on coverbs, and come back with a question on the site if it still does not make sense.

n.o.s.

said on

April 24, 2013

Hi to the popupchinese-team and to everybody else,

Is there any known story about the first use of the expression 糟糕?

just curious,

thanks Ole

Echo

said on

April 26, 2013

Hi n.o.s,

Hmm... I don't think there is any :(

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

MAC.JAMIE

said on

October 19, 2013

Echo, what is the difference between name and zheme?

Grace Qi

said on

October 20, 2013

Hi Jamie,

"这么" is used for something close and specific. Usually it refers to something that you can see in front of you.

i.e. 这么好的东西，你为什么不喜欢？

"那么" is used for something far and abstract. Usually it refers to something that you might not be able to see but you and the person or people you are talking to both know.

i.e. 你为什么把那么好的东西扔掉了？

Actually as long as 这么 is used for things are close to you and 那么 is used for things are far away from you, the usage of 这么 and 那么 is very flexible. i.e.这么幸福；那么幸福.

P.S.: 那么 can be used in the context of "那么，我们接下来要怎么办" but not 这么.

Hope it helps~~

MAC.JAMIE

said on

October 21, 2013

Grace, that was a graceful explanation. Ni hen you quwei.

Grace Qi

said on

October 21, 2013

@ Jamie,

别'那么'客气，你'这么'说，我'怎么'好意思呢，没'什么'的。呵呵～～～Chinese could be fun sometimes~~~

Oh, by the way, there is a Chinese book and song named Thought you'd be interested.

Have a nice night. ;)

MAC.JAMIE

said on

October 21, 2013

Wo zenme hao yisi means? A book and a song named?

You are great.

I will need you later to explain exact character for character idioms when I get onto Intermediate. I have one day and night left.

MAC.JAMIE

said on

October 21, 2013

If you say that, how can I gave fun?

Is that what it means? Its the conditional right?

Grace Qi

said on

October 22, 2013

Hi Jamie,

There's a Chinese book and song named "这么远，那么近". Don't know why it couldn't show up in the last text.

So 不好意思 or 怎么好意思 in Chinese means embarrassed or awkward in a good way after you get a compliment from people. In that context, it means "I feel a little embarrassed if you say that, It was nothing, you don't need to be that polite". Sometimes you can say"别那么说，我都不好意思啦" or "我怎么好意思"

P.S. 有意思 is fun. So you can say "你很有意思"

你很有意思～～～

MAC.JAMIE

said on

October 22, 2013

I know bu hao yisi is embarassed, but you left out the bu!

MAC.JAMIE

said on

October 22, 2013

Still, later, when I ask you about idioms, please please help me.

Grace Qi

said on

October 23, 2013

@ Jamie,

Okay. No problem. Actually if you think like this: 不好意思 is embarrassed then 好意思 would be not embarrassed in that context. So 我怎么好意思 is more like "How could I not be embarrassed"

Anyway, you got it~~~

MAC.JAMIE

said on

October 24, 2013

I did not get that, but now I have.

oyamakuma

said on

March 9, 2014

Sounds like a cab driver from guangzhou. You can go anywhere in Taiwan or China and your chinese could be awesome. But the minute you step into canton, noone understands your putonghua.

jaq.james

said on

September 15, 2016

I have a similar question that I just asked at the Break Up Part II page, so perhaps an answer may be the same here. But I'll ask it， nevertheless, just in case this is a different grammar point. Why does the clause 那么差劲吗 have a 有 before it instead of a 是（"have", instead of "is")？

trevelyan

said on

September 18, 2016

jaq.james,

Best not to think of 是 as the verb "to be" -- it's the grammatical equivalent of an equals sign that connects two noun or noun phrases. So using it would be inappropriate in this situation as neither of the phrases on either side can be interpreted as nouns.

The grammatical structure is: 有 + adverb of degree + adjective. Another example with the same structure might be if someone gives you a blanket and you don't need it, in which case you might say 我没有那么冷。

jaq.james

said on

September 18, 2016

That's a great explanation. Thanks! I wish I knew this earlier.

slim_243

said on

December 7, 2017

About this sentence: 我觉得你还是得好好地去学习一下！

I know that 还是 can be used to express "should better", but what's the point of 得? 还是 is an adverb and yes, it requires to be followed by a verb, but there's already 去 for that. Can 得 be omitted?

trevelyan

said on

December 9, 2017

@slim_243,

得 is functioning as a verb here and means "must". The 好好地 is modifying the verb phrase 去学习一下 which follows.

Might be useful to check the popup transcripts for this sort of thing in the future too. We manually edit them so the definitions for all of the words are specific to their usage in the sentence. Useful particularly for these sorts of cases where the characters have multiple meanings.

Best,

--david

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