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?

@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

@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....

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,

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,

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

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, what is the difference between name and zheme?

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

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.

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～～～

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

I did not get that, but now I have.

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")？

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

@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