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Tomorrow is my birthday

M: Péngyoumen hǎo! 欢迎收听"现在学汉语"，我是曼丽。

S: Dàjiāhǎo, wǒshì Stuart. ML, you look really excited today. What's happening?

M: Tomorrow is my birthday. 明天是我的生日。

S: Oh, I didn't know a bit. Happy birthday, shēngrì kuàilè, ML!

M: Thank you, Stuart. My family sent me beautiful cards. And my friends told
me they would hold a birthday party for me tomorrow evening! 我的家人寄来了
漂亮的卡片。而且我的朋友们说，他们明天晚上要为我举行生日宴会！

S: How nice!

M: And Stuart, would you come and join my birthday party?

S: I would love to if I have time! But first, let's look at the new stuff in this lesson.

M: I said, ‘tomorrow is my birthday'. 明天是我的生日。生日，SHENG RI, first tone

fourth tone, shēngrì, birthday. Remember the ‘rì', which means ‘day'? We learnt
it before in ‘xīngqīrì', Sunday.

S: Learning that tomorrow is ML's ‘shēngrì', I said, ‘shēngrì kuàilè!' Happy

birthday! Shēngrì kuàilè. I bet you've guessed what ‘kuàilè' means here…Duìle,
happy, kuàilè, KUAI LE, both fourth tone, kuàilè.

M: So, if new is ‘xīn' and year is ‘nián', new year is ‘xīnnián', how do we say
‘happy new year' in Chinese?

S: Did you say ‘xīnnián kuàilè', ‘xīnnián kuàilè'? You did？Congratulations! 恭喜

恭喜， you've won a break.

S: Break's over! Let's continue learning the rest new stuff.

M: I told Stuart, 我的家人寄来了漂亮的卡片。My family sent me beautiful cards. 我

的家人寄来了漂亮的卡片。

S: Jì, send by post or email, jì. Out of interest, if you are the receiver, you

  Coryright 2007 cchello.com 
                                                                                     www.cchello.com 
usually use ‘jìlái', as in this sentence. Remember, 来 means to come. But if you
are the one to send things out, you often use ‘jìqù' or ‘jìzǒu'. The ‘qù' and ‘zǒu'
both mean ‘to go'.

M: Jiārén, family, family members, jiārén. Piàoliang, PIAO LIANG, beautiful or

pretty, piàoliang. And ‘卡片', KA PIAN, third tone fourth tone, kǎpiàn, is card.

S: So, tāde jiārén jìláile piàoliangde kǎpiàn. Once again. Tāde jiārén jìláile
piàoliangde kǎpiàn.

M: What's more, my friends told me, 而且我的朋友们说，they would hold a

birthday party for me tomorrow evening! 他们明天晚上要为我举行生日宴会！

S: Wèi, WEI, fourth tone, means ‘for'. Wèi wǒ, for me. In English we say, ‘do sth.
for sb.', but in Chinese people always say ‘for sb. do sth.'. Wèiwǒ jǔxíng shēngrì
yànhuì.

M: Still remember the word ‘jǔxíng', 举行? Right, it means to hold a meeting,
party, or whatever. And ‘party' in Chinese is ‘yànhuì', YAN HUI, both fourth tone,
yànhuì. So ‘birthday party' is ‘shēngrì yànhuì', ‘shēngrì yànhuì'.

S: And ML kindly invited me to her birthday party. Hmm, I'll try my best, though
I'm really busy these days. But now I'm to get off work – xiàbān, and find a gift
for her. See you tomorrow!

  Coryright 2007 cchello.com