Intermediate Spoken Chinese

Basic Conversation 11-4

1. GAS STATION ATTENDANT	Huānyíng guānglín! Qĭng wèn, nĭ jiā shémme yóu?
	Welcome! Excuse me, what kind of gas do you want?
2. AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN	Jiŭ wŭ. Èrshigōngshēng. M, wŏ kàn hái shi jiāmăn hăole.
	95. Twenty liters. Uh, I think you might as well just fill it up.
3. GAS STATION ATTENDANT	Hăode. Qĭng kàn, xiànzài cóng líng kāishĭ.
	All right. Look, it’s now starting from zero.
	(after filling the car with gasoline)
	Hăole, yígòng sìbăi qīshiwŭyuán.
	O.K., that makes 475 NT in all.
4. AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN	Zhè shi wŭbăikuài.
	This is 500 NT.
5. GAS STATION ATTENDANT	Qĭng wèn, nĭde tŏngyī biānhào shi...
	Excuse me, your unified serial number is...
6. AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN	Búbìle.
	It’s not necessary.
7. GAS STATION ATTENDANT	Búbìle?
	It’s not necessary?
	(returns with the change)
	Hăo, zhăo nĭ èrshiwŭyuán. Xièxie!
	O.K., here’s 25 NT in change. Thank you!
8. AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN	Hăoxiàng yóujià yòu yào zhăngle?
	It looks likes the price of gas is going up again?
9. GAS STATION ATTENDANT	Èi, duì a. Cóng míngtiān qĭ yóujià yòu yào tiáozhĕngle, suóyi jīntiān jiāyóude chē tèbié duō. Nĭ kàn, dà-pái-cháng-lóng ó!
	Yeah, that’s right. Starting tomorrow, the price of gas is going to be adjusted again, so today there’re especially many cars filling up. Just look at how they’ve formed a long line!

Build Up

1. Gas station attendant
huānyíng guānglín	“we welcome your honorable presence” [IE]
yóu	oil [N]
jiāyóu	add gasoline, buy gas [VO]
nĭ jiā shémme yóu	you’ll add which kind of gas
Huānyíng guānglín! Qĭng wèn, nĭ jiā shémme yóu?	Welcome! Excuse me, what kind of gas do you want?
2. American businessman
gōngshēng	liter [M]
èrshigōngshēng	twenty liters
kàn	think, consider [V]
wŏ kàn	the way I see things
măn	be full [SV]
-măn	full [RE]
jiāmăn	fill up [RC]
hái shi jiāmăn hăole	it would be better to fill up
Jiŭ wŭ. Èrshigōngshēng. M, wŏ kàn hái shi jiāmăn hăole.	95. Twenty liters. Uh, I think you might as well just fill it up.
3. Gas station attendant
cóng líng kāishĭ	start from zero
Hăode. Qĭng kàn, xiànzài cóng líng kāishĭ.	All right. Look, it’s now starting from zero.

hăole	“all right,” “O.K.” [IE]
yuán	dollar (monetary unit) [M]
sìbăi qīshiwŭyuán	four hundred and seventy-five yuan
Hăole, yígòng sìbăi qīshiwŭyuán.	O.K., that makes 475 NT in all.
4. American businessman
Zhè shi wŭbăikuài.	This is 500 NT.
5. Gas station attendant
tŏngyī	unite, unify [V]
biānhào	serial number [N]
tŏngyī biānhào	unified serial number
Qĭng wèn, nĭde tŏngyī biānhào shi...	Excuse me, your unified serial number is...
6. American businessman
Búbìle.	It’s not necessary.
7. Gas station attendant
Búbìle?	It’s not necessary?
Hăo, zhăo nĭ èrshiwŭyuán. Xièxie!	O.K., here’s 25 NT in change. Thank you!
8. American businessman
yóujià	price of gasoline [N]
zhăng	rise, go up [V]
yòu yào zhăngle	is going to rise again
Hăoxiàng yóujià yòu yào zhăngle?	It looks likes the price of gas is going up again?
9. Gas station attendant
èi	“yeah” [I]
cóng...qĭ	starting from... [PT]
cóng míngtiān qĭ	starting from tomorrow
tiáozhĕng	adjust [V]
yóujià yòu yào tiáozhĕngle	price of gas will again be adjusted
tèbié	especially [A]
dà-pái-cháng-lóng	form a long line [EX]
Èi, duì a. Cóng míngtiān qĭ yóujià yòu yào tiáozhĕngle, suóyi jīntiān jiāyóude chē tèbié duō. Nĭ kàn, dà-pái-cháng-lóng ó!	Yeah, that’s right. Starting tomorrow, the price of gas is going to be adjusted again, so today there’re especially many cars filling up. Just look at how they’ve formed a long line!

1A. The idiomatic expression huānyíng guānglín “we welcome your honorable presence” is very formal and very polite. It can be used by a host to welcome guests or, as here, by employees of a commercial establishment to welcome customers.

1B. The verb-object compound jiāyóu (lit. “add oil”) means “add gasoline, buy gas, refuel.” Be aware that besides this meaning, the expression can also mean “step on the gas,” i.e., step on the gas pedal of a car to increase the flow of gasoline to the motor. Furthermore, this expression can also be used to cheer players on in a competition, e.g., Jiāyóu, jiāyóu! “Step on it!” or “Go team!”

2A. Jiŭ wŭ “95” refers to the octane rating of the gasoline. There are some speakers who, instead of reading this off as a series of two numbers, “nine” and “five,” pronounce it as one number and say jiŭshiwŭ “ninety-five.”

2B. Gōngshēng “liter” is one in the series of measure words that begins with gōng- that refers to units of the metric system (11-3: 5C).

2C. Wŏ kàn hái shi jiāmăn hăole “I think you might as well just fill it up.” The verb kàn, which you learned as meaning “look, see” in 3-2 and as “read” in 9-4 has an additional meaning of “think” or “consider.” In this sense, it occurs only after wŏ in an affirmative sentence, or after nĭ in an interrogative sentence. Examples:

3. Because some dishonest gas station owners have at times pumped less gasoline than they claimed they did, service station attendants in Taiwan now often direct customers’ attention to the fact that the pump gauge is at zero at the beginning of the transaction.

5A. Tŏngyī “unite, unify” is the verb that would be used, for example, when discussing whether or how mainland China and Taiwan should “unite.” Example:

5B. Tŏngyī biānhào “united serial number” is a number that is entered on the gasoline receipts for those customers for whom gasoline is a deductible business expense.

7. The question Búbìle? “It’s not necessary?” is an intonation question pronounced with rising intonation (cf. 2-3: 1C).

8. Hăoxiàng yóujià yòu yào zhăngle? “It looks likes the price of gas is going up again?” Just like the previous line, this whole line is also an intonation question pronounced with rising intonation.

8–9. YÒU YÀO...LE. The pattern yòu yào...le means “will...again” (lit. “again will...”). A verb always fills the slot after yào and before the le. The pattern is:

We see Yóujià yòu yào zhăngle “The price of gas is going to rise again” in line 8, and Yóujià yòu yào tiáozhĕngle “The price of gas is going to be adjusted again” in line 9. Yòu “again,” which normally means “again” for past situations, is here used in spite of this being a future situation because the sense is that “the price of gas has gone up time and time again in the past and now here we go again.” The le at the end of this pattern indicates anticipated change in a future situation (3-2: 6D). Some more examples with the pattern yòu yào...le:

Wŏ zuótiān gāng cóng Shànghăi huílai, míngtiān yòu yào qù Guăngzhōu le.

“I just got back from Shanghai yesterday; tomorrow I’m leaving again for Guangzhou.”

9A. CÓNG...QĬ. Cóng means “from” and qĭ literally means “rise” or “arise.” The pattern cóng...qĭ means “beginning from/with/on/in,” “starting from...,” or “from...on.” A time word, place word, or question word fills the slot between the cóng and the qĭ. The pattern is:

In this pattern, the qĭ can occur independently, as above and in the first two examples below, or the qĭ can be suffixed to a one-syllable verb, as in the last two examples below. If qĭ is suffixed to a verb, the meaning is “begin (verb).” Some more examples of the pattern cóng...qĭ:

Cóng xué Zhōngwénde dìyītiān qĭ, wŏmen shàngkède shíhour bù shuō Yīngwén.

“From the first day of learning Chinese, when we have class we don’t speak English.”

The pattern cóng...qĭ is often the same or nearly the same in meaning as the pattern cóng...kāishĭ “starting from...” (10-1: 4A).

9B. Note the verb tiáozhĕng “adjust.” Tiáozhĕng yóujià “adjust the price of gasoline” and tiáozhĕng jiàqián “adjust price(s)” are common collocations. Another noun that is often used as the object of tiáozhĕng is shíjiān “time.” Example:

9C. To say “there are especially many cars filling up,” you’d say jiāyóude chē tèbié duō, literally “the cars filling up with gas are especially many.” Yŏu “there is/there are” would not normally be used here.

9D. The common adverb tèbié “especially” can be used everywhere Chinese is spoken. In mainland China (but not in Taiwan), tè alone is sometimes used in place of tèbié when modifying stative verbs, as in tè hăo “especially good” or tè guì “especially expensive.”

9E. The four-character expression dàpái chánglóng “form a long line” literally means “greatly line up long dragons” and is used to refer to long lines of cars, people, etc.

9F. Note that through assimilation with the final -ng of the preceding lóng, the ó at the end of dà-pái-cháng-lóng ó sounds as though it were written ngó, so that the whole phrase is pronounced dà-pái-cháng-lóng ngó.

1. qí	ride, straddle (bicycle, motorcycle, horse) [V]
mótuōchē	motorcycle [N]
Tā xĭhuan qí mótuōchē.	She likes to ride motorcycles.
2. tíngchē	park a car, park [VO]
tíngchēchăng	parking lot [PW]
Rúguŏ zhăobuzháo tíngchēchă zĕmme bàn?ng,	If I can’t find a parking lot, what should I do?
3. jiāyóuzhàn	gasoline station [PW]
Wŏ dĕi dào jiāyóuzhàn qù jiāyóu.	I have to go to the gas station for a fill-up.
4. qìyóu	gasoline [N]
jiàqián	price [N]
tè (B)	especially [A]
Zuìjìn qìyóude jiàqián tè guì.	Recently the price of gas has been especially high.

SUBJECT	YÒU YÀO	VERB	LE
Tāmen	yòu yào	lái le.
“They’re coming again.”

Nĭ yòu yào jiāyóu le?	“You’re going to stop for gas again?”
Tīngshuō míngtiān yòu yào xiàyŭ le.	“I heard tomorrow it’s going to rain again.”
Nĭ zĕmme yòu yào qù Zhōngguo le?	“How come you’re going to go to China again?”

CÓNG	TW/ PW/QW	QĬ
cóng	míngtiān	qĭ
“starting tomorrow”