Growing weary of Lassie bounding into your bedroom at the very break of dawn, his innocent eyes beaming with the delight of another day? Join us in this podcast as we reveal an age-old Chinese technique for breaking your pets of their infectious enthusiasm for life. In addition to covering some unexpected vocabulary, in this addictive podcast we also highlight three common sentence patterns you'll hear all the time.
 said on
August 13, 2009
A sentence in this podcast made me wonder, when can you drop the measure word?

Echo gives the example sentence “这房子看起来很破。” I would've thought that 这房子 requires a 栋 or maybe a 个.

Or, maybe, is the measure word there, but I just can't hear it?

Thanks for any help, and thanks for another entertaining, and informative, podcast.
 said on
August 13, 2009
Curious about this too now you mention it. I know people will drop measure words occasionally in speech, but have never heard a good explanation for when and why. Are there rules governing this?
 said on
August 13, 2009
@blaketx, @orbital,

good question.

actually in Chinese, people would omit the measure word when they speak casually. eg.

这猫很淘气。--只

我特别讨厌那人。--个

你这病怎么样了?--场

according to my personal experience, if we say:

这只猫很淘气。it means this cat not that cat i s naughty.

if we say:

这(zhè)猫很淘气。it just means the cat here is pretty naughty.那(nà)猫很淘气。is the same.

in addition, if we change the pronunciation of 这 and 那 to zhèi and nèi:

这(zhèi) functions like 这个(zhège)

那(nèi) functions like 那个(nàge)

eg. 这(zhèi)猫很淘气。means this cat not that cat is naughty.

 said on
August 13, 2009
@Gail

I've been told that "那得看" is an older usage for "depends on". Is "看情况" more contemporary and casual?

I'm debating on whether I want to sound like a grandma when I speak chinese or someone just exiting awkward teen phase. Tough decision. HELP ME GAIL!!

 said on
August 13, 2009
@paglino9,

那得看can be translated as:it depends on...

eg.那得看他的意见了。it depends on his opinion.

那得看明天的天气怎么样了。it depends on the weather tomorrow.

那得看你有没有时间了。it depends on whether you have time or not.

and 看情况 can be translated as: it depends.

明天你去吗?——看情况。

你什么时候能完成?——看情况。

你什么时候回来?——看情况吧。

 said on
August 14, 2009
@paglino9,

So that is to say, we use 看情况 alone in order to answer questions. And when we use 那得看, we would always stick something after it. Btw, you can say 那得看情况 too. It is the same as 看情况.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese
 said on
August 14, 2009
Excellent answer on both fronts. Thank you Gail and Echo
 said on
August 17, 2009
补充例句 Supplementary Sentences from this lesson:

[kànlái] to look as if; to appear

这房子很破。This house looks run down.

那瓶威士忌很好喝。That bottle of whiskey looks delicious.

喝多了谁都很漂亮。(If you) drink to much (then) everyone looks pretty.

Omitting and in conditional sentences

(你)喝多了谁都很漂亮。(If you) drink to much (then) everyone looks pretty.

From the dialogue:

()不给它喝酒它()咬人啊

(它)咬人()更贵啊

[děikàn] that depends on

我们什么时候录完了。That depends on when we finish recording.

我们晚上吃什么?//你了。 What are we eating for dinner?//That depends on you.

 said on
September 6, 2009
Why use 二 in the phrase er4 liang? If it is a measure word shouldnt 两 be used?
 said on
September 6, 2009
@user5834,

Since 两 is used as the measure word here, we should put 二 in front of it,but not 两 again. This is one of the rules to use 二 and 两.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
September 7, 2009
@user5834,

echo is right.

actually there are two reasons for us to use 二 here.

1. the pronunciation would be hard if we have two 两 together, and because 两is also a measure word, we use 二for the number.

2. for measure words of chinese traditional weight unit, we use 二 instead of 两。the tranditional measure words are 斤 and 两, however, today we can also say 两斤.
 said on
November 3, 2009
lol! really funny story! I'm glad it's not as boring as my previous Chinese text book.
 said on
November 3, 2009
@opavlikova,

Welcome to Popup Chinese ! 欢迎你!

Glad to hear that you like our lessons ! If you have any suggestions or questions, you can always write to me or leave a comment on the site :)

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
January 5, 2010
Wow! Soooooo excited to find this site! And to find there are 45 pages of lessons! Giving some good limited access for free is a good idea. I reason that if what is available free is SO good, what you would pay for will also be a treasure. Broke now with buying a car with my Chinese salary, but when I'm in the clear, I will definitely subscribe. More power to you and thanks so much for the freebies.
 said on
January 5, 2010
Welcome to Popup Chinese, Susan. This is a good site and a good community too, even if there are a few too many Canadians skulking around for anyone to ever feel completely safe. :)

 said on
January 6, 2010
@susanjallen

热烈欢迎(re4lie4 huan1ying2,warm welcome)!

@orbital

Agreed.
 said on
January 10, 2010
Thanks for the welcome. Aside from you (and even your Canadians...) one thing I love about your podcasts is the amazing actors you've managed to get on your team. Totally first class! I'm a voice-over narrator myself, and really wince at other language learning resources that take no care in enlisting talent for this aspect of their productions. Listening to this first class acting talent on PopupChinese is like music to my ears. I've been wondering why they aren't mentioned by name, as they contribute so much to the appeal of your site. Wish you guys would break down and show us a photo of your entire crew---you could hide it somewhere on a back page, where only really interested people could find it... (Let me know if you do!)
 said on
January 10, 2010
Susanjallen,

Coincidentaly, I'm also an actor, and feel the same way about the awesome talent they have here! They really lucked out with the crew. I believe their voice talent's pictures are all over the site. They are also featured in the promotional video that displays on the home page.

I also wish they would have a page with the name and 简历 of each actor. The only one I know by name is Apple.
 said on
January 11, 2010
@Susanjallen,

Thank you so much for your good words about our voice actors :) Actually you can see all of their photos and videos on the home page. On the "text" page of each lesson, you can always find the voice actors' names on the left.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
January 27, 2013
Hi I have a question about the line "不是病了,就是喝多了。" I thought 不是。。。就是。。。 was a structure that meant "Either..., or..." is this wrong?
 said on
January 27, 2013
@minghan,

Yes, it's usually like you said!

However, in this sentence in the dialogue, 就是 means "just". When you listen to the way the actor says the line, you can hear him emphasizing the 就是. That's why it's not a 不是...就是 structure.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
April 9, 2014
I have a quick question:

Is the 可 in the final sentence short for 可是 or is it emphasis along the same lines as in a different podcast where we had a sentence something like 为了钱,我可什么都能做.
 said on
April 9, 2014
@dominic.jackson,

Here it's short for 可是 and it's actually quite common in spoken Chinese. i.e. 可我不想去。可他不知道。