Intermediate Spoken Chinese

While walking on a street in downtown Taipei, Susan Everett suddenly realizes her purse has been stolen. She calls out and a passerby comes to her assistance. The passerby calls a policeman to the scene.

Basic Conversation 22-2

1. EVERETT	Xiăotōu! Yŏu rén tōule wŏde píbāo!
	Thief! Somebody stole my purse!
2. PASSERBY	Shémme? Zĕmme huí shì?
	What? What happened?
3. EVERETT	Jiù shi nèige rén! Gănkuài zhuāzhù tā, búyào ràng tā păodiào. Zhè fùjìn yŏu méiyou jĭngchá?
	It’s that guy! Hurry up and catch him, don’t let him run away. Is there a policeman nearby?
4. PASSERBY	Wŏ qù jiào yíwèi jĭngchá lái.
	I’ll go call a policeman.
5. EVERETT	(speaking to a policeman who has arrived) Wŏ shi Mĕiguo rén, zài Shīdà Guóyŭ Zhōngxīn dúshū. Wŏde píbāo, hùzhào, gèzhŏng zhèngjiàn dōu bèi tōule. Bù zhīdào nèige rén păodào náli qùle. Xiànzài zĕmme bàn? Wŏ nèixiē dōngxi fēi zhăohuílai bù kĕ!
	I’m an American, I’m studying at the NTNU Mandarin Training Center. My purse, passport, and all kinds of IDs were stolen. I don’t know where that man ran to. What should I do now? I’ve got to get those things of mine back!
6. POLICEMAN	Bié jí, bié jí! Wŏmen yídìng jìnlì bāng nĭ zhăo. Qĭng nĭ xiān gēn wŏ dào jĭngchájú qù yitang.
	Don’t worry! We’ll definitely do our best to help you find them. Please first go to the police station with me.
7. EVERETT	Hăo ba.
	Well, O.K.

Build Up

1. Everett
xiăotōu	thief [N]
tōu	steal [V]
píbāo	purse [N]
Xiăotōu! Yŏu rén tōule wŏde píbāo!	Thief! Somebody stole my purse!
2. Passerby
zĕmme huí shì(r)	“what’s the matter?” [IE]
Shémme? Zĕmme huí shì?	What? What happened?
3. Everett
gănkuài	quickly [A]
zhuā	catch [V]
zhuāzhù	catch hold of [RC]
gănkuài zhuāzhù tā	quickly catch hold of him
diào	fall, drop [V]
-diào	away [RE]
păodiào	run away [RC]
búyào ràng tā păodiào	don’t let him run away
zhè fùjìn	in this vicinity, nearby
Jiù shi nèige rén! Gănkuài zhuāzhù tā, búyào ràng tā păodiào. Zhè fùjìn yŏu méiyou jĭngchá?	It’s that guy! Hurry up and catch him, don’t let him run away. Is there a policeman nearby?
4. Passerby
jiào yíwèi jĭngchá lái	call a policeman to come
Wŏ qù jiào yíwèi jĭngchá lái.	I’ll go call a policeman.
5. Everett
Shīdà	National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) [PW]
Guóyŭ Zhōngxīn	Mandarin Center [PW]
Shīdà Guóyŭ Zhōngxīn	NTNU Mandarin Center
hùzhào	passport [N]
zhèngjiàn	identification paper [N]
gèzhŏng zhèngjiàn	every kind of ID
bèi	(indicates passive) [CV]
dōu bèi tōule	were all stolen
păodào	run to [V+PV]
păodào náli qùle	ran to where
xiànzài zĕmme bàn	now what should one do
-huílai	come back [RE]
zhăohuílai	find and get back [RC]
nèixiē	those [SP+M]
nèixiē dōngxi	those things
fēi...bù kĕ	must [PT]
fēi zhăohuílai bù kĕ	must find and get back
Wŏ shi Mĕiguo rén, zài Shīdà Guóyŭ Zhōngxīn dúshū. Wŏde píbāo, hùzhào, gèzhŏng zhèngjiàn dōu bèi tōule. Bù zhīdào nèige rén păodào náli qùle. Xiànzài zĕmme bàn? Wŏ nèixiē dōngxi fēi zhăohuílai bù kĕ!	I’m an American, I’m studying at the NTNU Mandarin Training Center. My purse, passport, and all kinds of IDs were stolen. I don’t know where that man ran to. What should I do now? I’ve got to get those things of mine back!
6. Policeman
jí	be worried, anxious [SV]
bié jí	don’t worry
jìnlì bāng nĭ zhăo	do our best to help you find
jĭngchájú	police station [PW]
dào jĭngchájú qù yitang	make a trip to the police station
Bié jí, bié jí! Wŏmen yídìng jìnlì bāng nĭ zhăo. Qĭng nĭ xiān gēn wŏ dào jĭngchájú qù yitang.	Don’t worry! We’ll definitely do our best to help you find them. Please first go to the police station with me.
7. Everett
Hăo ba.	Well, O.K.

1A. Tōu means “steal”; this word refers to the taking of something which doesn’t belong to one without violence and without the person whose possession is being taken being aware of it. If violence occurs, then the verb to use would be qiăng “rob.” Tōu and qiăng are distinguished more carefully in Chinese than “steal” and “rob” are in English.

1B. While there is less violent crime in mainland China and Taiwan than in the U.S., there are plenty of pickpockets, so be careful with purses and wallets. Men should never put their wallets in the back pocket of their trousers, and women must be careful with handbags. Pickpockets occasionally work in groups, with one purposely bumping into you to distract you while another steals your purse or billfold, so be careful!

2. A common and useful expression for inquiring about something that has happened or the reason why something has happened is Zĕmme huí shì(r) “What’s the matter?” or “What happened?” This can also be said, with exactly the same meaning, as Zhè shi zĕmme yì huí shì?

3A. The resultative ending -zhù indicates “hold onto something tightly.” Contrast: zhuā “catch,” zhuāzhù “catch hold of,” zhuādezhù “can catch hold of,” and zhuābuzhù “can’t catch hold of.” Dāibuzhù “can’t stay (inside)” (18-1: 11D) was also an example of this resultative ending. Yet other examples are nábuzhù “can’t hold on to,” zhànbuzhù “can’t stand still,” and jìbuzhù “can’t remember.”

3B. Instead of zhè fùjìn “here in the vicinity,” Beijing speakers would say zhèr fùjìn.

4. Wŏ qù jiào yíwèi jĭngchá lái “I’ll go call a policeman.” This is a so-called pivot sentence (8-2: 2C) and represents the combination of these two sentences: Wŏ qù jiào yíwèi jĭngchá “I call a policeman” and Jĭngchá lái “The policeman comes.” In the first sentence, jĭngchá is the object, but in the second sentence, jĭngchá serves as the subject. The verb jiào commonly serves as a pivot in this way. Sometimes it’s best translated as “call,” while sometimes it translates better as “tell” or “ask.” Another example of jiào in a pivot sentence:

5A. Shīdà is an abbreviation of Guólì Táiwān Shīfàn Dàxué “National Taiwan Normal University,” which in English is often abbreviated as NTNU. The Chinese abbreviation, of course, derives from the Shī of Shīfàn and the Dà of Dàxué (5-2: 9A).

5B. EXPRESSING PASSIVE VOICE IN CHINESE. Examine the following sentence from line 5 of this lesson’s Basic Conversation:

Notice that all of the above sentences contain the coverb bèi. The pattern with bèi to express passive is:

Note that in the example above, the agent—the part that expresses by whom the action of the verb was performed—is optional. So you could say either Tā bèi lăoshī màle “She was scolded by the teacher” or just Tā bèi màle “She was scolded.” Here are some more examples of the passive with bèi, some of them with and some without an agent:

(1) In a Chinese passive sentence, the main verb must be transitive, in other words, it must be capable of having an object.

(2) As in the case of bă (15-3: 1C), the main verb of a bèi sentence cannot occur alone but must have a verb suffix such as -le or a verb complement attached to it.

(3) As is true of all coverbs, if there is a negative or auxiliary verb, it must precede the bèi and cannot precede the main verb. For example, to say “Your things were not taken away” you’d say Nĭde dōngxi méi bèi názŏu and NOT *Nĭde dōngxi bèi méi názŏu.

(4) Traditionally, the Chinese passive has been used mostly in adversative or infelicitous senses (i.e., unhappy situations such as “be killed,” “be hurt,” “be hit,” “be stolen,” etc.), and such usage is still common. However, due to the influence of Western languages, Chinese grammar has changed, so that now the passive with bèi is sometimes used even for happy events. This is especially true of modern written style, as in newspapers and novels.

(5) Not all verbs can occur with bèi. For example, most verbs of perception such as wéndào “smell” or gănjuédào “feel” cannot occur with bèi (though kànjian “see,” kàndào “see,” tīngjian “hear,” and tīngdào “hear” can). Observe carefully how and when your Chinese interlocutors use bèi.

(6) In Chinese, sentences with passive constructions are less common than in English. In general, Chinese speakers prefer active voice. Instead of saying “I was told,” Chinese speakers would usually say Yŏu rén gàosu wŏ, which literally means “There is a person who told me” or “Someone told me.”

(7) Besides bèi, there are two other coverbs that can be used to express the passive: ràng and jiào. However, these differ from bèi in several ways: (a) they’re especially colloquial and seldom written; (b) they’re typically “northern” in flavor and seldom used in other parts of China; (c) while bèi can be used with or without an agent, jiào and ràng must have an agent expressed (in lieu of a more specific agent, rén “somebody” can be used); and (d) in passive sentences with ràng and jiào, an optional gĕi (lit. “give”) is often added before the main verb of the sentence. Here are several examples with ràng and jiào:

Having now learned how to create the passive with bèi, ràng, and jiào, you should be careful not to overuse it. As we pointed out earlier, Chinese tends to use active voice much more commonly than passive. Moreover, depending on the context, some verbs may be interpreted in a passive sense without the need for any overt passive marking. That is, the direction of a verb may be outward from the subject as actor, or inward toward the subject as receiver of the action or goal. Study the following examples:

5C. Distinguish carefully the pronunciation of these two words, both of which occur in this conversation: păodiào “run away” (line 3) vs. păodào “run to” (line 5).

5D. FĒI...BÙ KĔ. Consider this sentence from the conversation: Wŏ nèixiē dōngxi fēi zhăohuílai bù kĕ “Those things of mine must be found.” As you already saw in the words fēicháng “not ordinarily” or “extremely” (15-1) and fēixīyān qū “non-smoking section” (18-3), and in the expression bú dào Cháng Chéng fēi hăohàn “if you don’t get to the Great Wall you’re not a brave man” (21-4), fēi is a Classical Chinese word that means “not”. Bù kĕ is also Classical Chinese and means “cannot” or “may not”; bù kĕ is the equivalent of modern Chinese bù kéyi. The pattern fēi...bù kĕ involves a double negative construction that literally means “cannot not,” i.e., “must” or “have to.” Sometimes, as in the last example below, the fēi...bù kĕ pattern can also function to indicate strong likelihood. The two parts of the pattern surround the verb phrase of the sentence. The basic pattern is:

While we don’t recommend you do this, in informal conversation, some speakers drop the bù kĕ at the end of the sentence. Although this would logically seem to give the opposite of the intended meaning, in practice the meaning is actually the same as with the full form; in this case, fēi would seem to have changed into an adverb with the meaning “must.” Because the fēi...bù kĕ structure is already a double negative, no further negatives can be added, so it can only be used to express positive obligation, not negative obligation. In other words, while you could say Nĭ fēi qù bù kĕ “You must go,” you couldn’t say *Nĭ fēi bú qù bù kĕ “You must not go.” There are several closely related patterns with the same meaning, including fēidĕi...bù kĕ and fēi...bù xíng. Fēidĕi alone is also common and has the same meaning. Here are two examples with fēidĕi...bù kĕ:

Duìbuqĭ, wŏ xiànzài fēidĕi dào yòu’éryuán qù jiē wŏ háizi bù kĕ.

6. Qĭng nĭ xiān gēn wŏ dào jĭngchájú qù yitang “Please first go to the police station with me.” Qù yitang literally means “go a trip,” that is, “make a trip” to some place. It would not be wrong to end the sentence with qù, but the addition of yitang renders the sentence more colloquial and less abrupt.

1. -huíqu	go back [RE]
păohuíqu	run back [RC]
Tā păohuíqule.	She ran back.
2. qiánbāo	wallet [N]
Xiăo Lĭde qiánbāo bèi tōule.	Little Li’s wallet was stolen.
3. mà	scold, curse [V]
Tā bèi lăoshī màle.	She was scolded by the teacher.
4. piàn	trick, deceive [V]
Nĭ bèi tā piànle!	You were tricked by him!

Nĭ bèi tā piànle!	“You got tricked by him!”
Tā bèi lăoshī màle.	“She was scolded by the teacher.”

SUBJECT	BÈI (AGENT)	VERB
Tā	bèi (lăoshī)	màle.
“She was scolded (by the teacher).”

Tā bèi shāle.	“He was killed.”
Tā bèi màle.	“She was scolded.”
Yĭzi bèi tā bānzŏule.	“The chair was moved away by him.”
Dōngxi dōu bèi nĭ tōule!	“The things were all stolen by you!”
Wŏde xiāngzi bèi názŏule.	“My suitcase was taken away.”
Xìn dàgài bèi yóujú nòngdiūle.	“The letter was probably lost by the post office.”

Tā jiào wŏ (gĕi) dăle.	“He was hit by me.”
Mén jiào fēng (gĕi) chuīkāile.	“The door was blown open by the wind.”
Táng dōu jiào háizimen (gĕi) chīle.	“The candy was all eaten by the children.”
Chē jiào Wáng Xiānsheng (gĕi) kāizŏule.	“The car was driven away by Mr. Wang.”
Tā ràng wŏ (gĕi) màle.	“She was scolded by me.”
Chá dōu ràng kèrén (gĕi) hēwánle.	“The tea has all been drunk up by the guests.”
Dàxué ràng dŏngshìhuì (gĕi) màile.	“The college was sold by the board of trustees.”
Wŏmen shuōde huà ràng tā (gĕi) tīngjianle.	“What we said was heard by them.”

Chēzi yĭjīng màile.	“The car has already been sold.”
Tāde fùmŭ gāng líhūnle.	“His parents were just divorced.”
Zìdiăn fàngzai zhuōzishang le.	“The dictionary has been put on a table.”
Nèibĕn shū qùnián jiù chūbănle.	“That book was already published last year.”
Tāmen shuō Zhōngguo zăo jiù jiĕfàngle.	“They said that China was liberated long ago.”
Tā zài chēhuò zhōng shòule zhòngshāng.	“She was badly hurt in the accident.”

SUBJECT	FĒI	VERB PHRASE	BÙ KĔ
Nĭ	fēi	qù	bù kĕ!
“You’ve got to go!”

Zhèixiē huà nĭ fēi shuō bù kĕ ma?	“Do you have to say these words?”
Wŏ fēi cānjiā zhèicì huódòng bù kĕ.	“I must take part in this activity.”