English translation: A: Mr. Stone, your Chinese is very standard, you don’t have any foreign accent. B: Not really, you’re flattering me. A: Who do you study Chinese with? B: I studied Chinese before in America. My Chinese teacher told us to speak more and read more. Now I’m in Beijing, I speak Chinese every day. A: How about Chinese characters? Can you read and write? B: I can read pretty well, but Chinese characters aren’t easy to write. I can’t write many. A: How many characters do you know? B: About seven or eight hundred. A: Quite a few then. You should study calligraphy. When you learn how characters are written you can know the meaning of many of them. For example, (the character for) ‘love’. At the top it has a hand. In the middle there’s a heart. At the bottom, there’s a foot. This means that a person walks a long road until they hand their heart to their true love. B: Chinese characters are really interesting! (Editor’s note: This cute little story about the Chinese character 爱 ài (love) makes sense only if you understand the speaker as referring to the traditional form of the character: 愛. There are two forms for many Chinese characters: the traditional, more complicated ones, (fántîzì 繁体字), still I believe used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and most overseas Chinese communities, and the simplified, much easier to learn ones, (jiântîzì 简体字), used in mainland China since the 1950s. In the simplified form of the character for love, the 心 xïn (heart) component is absent. This confused me when I first studied this dialogue. When I asked a young (mainland) Chinese friend to help me understand it, he wryly remarked “you see in China, love isn’t what it used to be. Maybe you could say it has no heart these days.”) !
ài 爱 v. love biäozhûn 标准 n. standard bîfangshuö 比方说 for example bùcuò 不错 〈coll.〉 not bad; pretty good bùgändäng 不敢当 〈humb.〉 I don't deserve it; You flatter me. chàbuduö 差不多 adv. ①almost; about ②almost equal/equally cuò 错 wrong; mistaken | Wô nòng cuòle. I've got it wrong. ②bad; poor duö 多 many; much; more duöshao 多少 f.e. how many/much | duöshao qián yï gè? How much is it for one? Hànzì 汉字 n. Chinese character | Tä huì xiê jî gè Hànzì. He can write a few Chinese characters. huà 话 n. speech; talk; conversation; words; sayings; story jiâo 脚 n. foot kèbên 课本 n. textbook kôuyin 口音 n. local/regional accent mêitiän 每天 n. every day; daily mêi nián 每年 n. every year rèn 认 v. recognize; know rènshi 认识 v. know; recognize shâo 少 few; little shôu 手 n. hand shuö 说 v. speak; talk | Tä zênme shuö? What did he say? tán 谈 v. talk; chat | Wômen tánle yï ge xiâoshí. - We talked for an hour. shuöhuà 说话 speak; talk; say; chat | Shuö nâli huà! The idea! shüfâ 书法 n. calligraphy xïn 心 n. heart | Tä xïnli zhî yôu nî. - There's only you in her heart. xué 学 v. study; learn yôu yìsi 有意思 interesting; enjoyable yìsi 意思 n. meaning; idea | Wô de yìsi shì shuö... I mean to say... yòng 用 v. use; employ; apply Zhöngguóhuà 中国话 n. (spoken) Chinese language; Chinese Zhöngwén 中文 n. Chinese (written) language zì 字 n. character | Wô bù rènshi zhège zì. - I don't know this character. rènzì 认字 v. know how to read | Zhèi háizi yîjing käishî rènzì le. - This child is beginning to learn to read.
