In Baltimore, everything gets compromised over time. You can be the perfect cop or the perfect dealer, but you'll eventually get taken down. So to survive you have to watch your back. There are people who'll tell you that it's a hard world and you have to put friends and family above that, but the reality is that when the heat comes down, sometimes the only way to survive is making sure you're not the fall guy.In this Chinese lesson for Elementary students, we dole out some practical vocabulary you'll use regardless of how you feel about the law. You'll hear this when you call customer service. You'll hear it when you do your banking over the phone. You may even hear it from your closest friends and family.
jeangiscamp
said on October 14, 2010
我可能会为我们的电话录音。
wo3 ke3neng2 hui4 wei4 wo3men5 de5 dian4hua4 lu4yin1 。
What's this "为" (wei4) in here? "for"?
Could you elaborate on this sentence's building?
rvvanni
said on October 16, 2010
yes, I would like to know as well what are the
"hui" and "wei" doing in this structure. What do they exactly stand for?
Echo
said on October 16, 2010
@jeangiscamp & rvvanni,为 (wei4) means "for" in the sentence. An easier way to say the same thing is 录音我们的电话. 为 is emphasizing the object of the verb here. It is really natural here, but you can't do this with every verb. So you can't say 为老师的问题回答 for instance. Another example is 他打算为新房装修.This is a bit tricky, because there aren't any general rules for when you can do this. But that's what is happening.会 there is a signal of the future tense.--Echoecho@popupchinese.com
nurflight9
said on October 18, 2010
This was interesting. I've been using xu1yao4 and bi4xu1 interchangeably with verbs. Except that I do usually use bi4xu1 to indicate it's an obligation. So, I guess it's kind of like "must" and "should" in that one is an unavoidable requirement and the other is a moral obligation. However, I often say bi4xu1yao4, and don't know why, perhaps it's an error? Another question I have is: Are there any verbs before which you can't use xu1yao4?
martinjdupont
said on August 14, 2015
Your transcript shows 哎 as ai4 but my dictionnary shows that character as first tone. Any explanation for this tone discrepancy?
PutonghuaLover
said on March 27, 2016
martinjdupont: I know I'm super late on this but I feel that in the spoken language, the tones become very weak. For example, the telephone greeting 喂 in the dictionary will show that it's a second tone and in most cases, people will say it that way but if a someone who's really pissed off picks up the phone in the middle of an argument, who might "hear" the fourth tone. lol
user97478
said on September 2, 2017
this was well done but what a crazy dialogue!
newsunlaw.trang
said on June 1, 2019
It was well done but I am not sure about that I understood the content of this dialogue :). Anyone can explain it for me please. Thank you.
laogui32
said on December 27, 2019
Indeed the point of the dialogue was arcane - why the legal requirement to record the dialogue? 老鬼
beaudarc
said on December 30, 2019
The point was very simple: he had some troubles with the law and as a condition of his release ( or parole.... does China have parole?) he was required to have his telephone conversations monitored. That was pretty much clear to me the first time I listened to it.
