50 Ancient Chinese lesson 上古文课
やっとepisode 50、折り返し地点まで来ました。半年で半分、年内に終わるかな？
大家好, 欢迎收看我们今天的成长汉语节目. Hi everybody, thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Growing up with Chinese.
Now I have some news for all of you. Today marks the half way point of our show. Indeed, we are on our fiftieth episode of the series time flies seriously. Do you all feel your Chinese vocabularies and general grasp of the Chinese language growing? You should. And I’m going to say congratulations everyone.
Now, today we’ve got a pretty interesting show lined up. Mike and 小明 are taking us to one of their classes at school. And this one I have to say is pretty special. So, let’s check in with them and see what class they are attending.
老师：请大家跟我念：竹外桃花三两枝，春江水暖鸭先知。蒌蒿满地芦芽短，正是河豚欲上时。
同学们：竹外桃花三两枝，春江水暖鸭先知。蒌蒿满地芦芽短，正是河豚欲上时。
老师：麦克，你怎么不跟着我读啊？
麦克：老师，我一句都听不懂。听着跟唱歌似的。
老师：这不怪你。我们今天学的是一首非常著名的古诗。
麦克：古诗？
小明：哎呀，麦克，古诗就是古代人写的诗。这首诗是大诗人苏轼写的。
老师：谁能解释一下儿这首诗的意思？
小明：老师，我来吧。这首诗的意思是……
麦克：我知道，我知道。这首诗里有什么什么“暖鸭”。这“暖鸭”也是一种好吃的吧？
麦克：笑什么笑。老师，“暖鸭”和我吃过的“烤鸭”是不是差不多？ 您看，这明明就是鸭子的鸭嘛。
老师：哈哈，没想到你的想象力还挺丰富的。
小明：我的天哪！ 麦克，“鸭”也不都指“烤鸭”啊。这句话的意思是：春天到了，水变暖了，鸭子会最先感到。“暖”是指“水暖”，不是你说的“暖鸭”，还“烤鸭”呢！
老师：小明，麦克学习汉语不久，我们要多鼓励他，可不能笑话他啊。
小明：老师，没事没事。我和麦克是哥们儿。他不会生气的。是吧，麦克？
老师：小明，老师交给你一个任务。你今天晚上把这首诗从头到尾给麦克讲明白。明天我检查。好么？
小明：老师，您放心，没问题。
老师：好了，同学们，我们继续上课吧。大家再跟着我读一遍……
OK, so you’ve now all been to a classical Chinese class, what do you think? Kinda hard to understand isn’t it. Now I always had a tough time learning classical Chinese in school, so let’s go through the dialogue now and see what we can discover.
你怎么不跟着我读? Why aren’t you reading along with me? 跟着 is to follow along. Or in this case, because we have 读 or read, at the end of the sentence, we know that the teacher is referring to reading along.
这不怪你. 我们今天学的是一首非常著名的古诗. It’s not your fault. We’re studying a very famous ancient Chinese poem today. 怪 is to blame or find fault with. So 不怪你 means you’re not to blame or it’s not your fault. 著名 means famous or renowned. And 古 if you all remember from our episode on antiques, means ancient. And 诗 is the word for poem or poetry. So 古诗 is ancient poem or classic poem.
老师：麦克，你怎么不跟着我读啊？
麦克：老师，我一句都听不懂。听着跟唱歌似的。
老师：这不怪你。我们今天学的是一首非常著名的古诗。
麦克：古诗？
小明：哎呀，麦克，古诗就是古代人写的诗。这首诗是大诗人苏轼写的。
老师：谁能解释一下儿这首诗的意思？
没想到你的想象力还挺丰富的. I wouldn’t have thought your imagination was so rich. 没想到 means I wouldn’t have thought or one wouldn’t have thought. And 想象力 is the term for imagination, 丰富 means rich, colorful or abundant.
春天到了, 水变暖了, 鸭子会最先感到. Spring has arrived, the water has become warm and the ducks are the first to feel this. OK, so now we’re getting into the meaning of the poem. 变 means to change, so 水变暖了 means the water has become warm. 最先 is the very first. And 感到 is to feel. So, 鸭子会最先感到 means the ducks are the very first to feel this as in being the warming of the water.
麦克：笑什么笑。老师，“暖鸭”和我吃过的“烤鸭”是不是差不多？ 您看，这明明就是鸭子的鸭嘛。
老师：哈哈，没想到你的想象力还挺丰富的。
小明：我的天哪！ 麦克，“鸭”也不都指“烤鸭”啊。这句话的意思是：春天到了，水变暖了，鸭子会最先感到。“暖”是指“水暖”，不是你说的“暖鸭”，还“烤鸭”呢！
麦克学习汉语不久, 我们要多鼓励他, 可不能笑话他. Mike hasn’t been learning Chinese for a very long, we should be encouraging him more and certainly not making fun of him. Now 久 means a long time. So 不久 means not long. 鼓励 is to encourage and 笑话 on its own means joke. But if you 笑话 a person, it means to make fun of someone. What a nice supportive teacher.
老师：小明，麦克学习汉语不久，我们要多鼓励他，可不能笑话他啊。
小明：老师，没事没事。我和麦克是哥们儿。他不会生气的。是吧，麦克？
老师：小明，老师交给你一个任务。你今天晚上把这首诗从头到尾给麦克讲明白。明天我检查。好么？
小明：老师，您放心，没问题。
Let’s first take a look at today’s vocabulary.
- 解释 explain, explanation. jiě shì
- 意思 meaning. yì si
- 丰富 rich, abundant. fēng fù
- 鼓励 encourage, encouragement. gǔ lì
- 从头到尾 from beginning to end. cóng tóu dào wěi
Today we are going to be looking at the 角子旁 otherwise known as the horn or angle radical. It has these two meanings because as a character it means angle as in a mathematical angle or it means horn as in the horns on an animal. So, let’s just take a look at 角 as a character… OK, this is the character 角.
Now, we see it as a radical in today’s vocabulary list in the character 解 of 解释. So, 解释的解 looks like this. We have a horn or angle radical, we have a knife character and the character for cow.
Spotlight
So last time we talked about the 唐 dynasty. And how poetry came to be a part of everyday life for many people living at that time. Today I want to introduce a very famous Chinese poet to you all, and he wrote my favorite Chinese poem. But, before I do that, let’s talk about feelings for just a minute.
In China people are much more reserved. Feelings aren’t something people talk about much at all even within families. But, poetry is a medium in China where feelings are supposed to be expressed people expect it. And it is OK to let your feelings out in a poem.
So, onto my favorite 唐 poet 李白. 李白 lived from seven-o-one to seven sixty-two so roughly a century after the 唐 dynasty was established. Now 李白 was not born into the aristocracy. And while he was educated, he didn’t have the right kind of education to apply to take the civil service examination. So 李白 essentially had to sell himself in order to find a place in society.
He traveled all over the place and earned quite the reputation as being a wild, eccentric poet. When everyone was writing poetry and regulated verse*1, he didn’t. He wrote many poems and drinking which was a fond pastime for him. In a society where fitting in was the norm, 李白 didn’t. And this is precisely one of the reasons why he was so popular.
Primer
OK everyone it’s time to go over today’s language points and to begin with let’s take a look at 一下.
一下 is used after a verb to imply “once” as in do something just once or to try something out. Now we saw it used today in the sentence 谁能解释一下儿这首诗的意思? Who can explain the meaning of this sentence? So in this case, 一下 is used to imply a certain quality of swiftness. 解释一下. Explain as in give it a shot*2. You could also say 试一下这件衣服. Try this piece of clothing on.
- 兰兰，你帮我看一下儿这道题。／不对，这儿错了。
- 这道题你最好再算一下儿。
明明. 明明 means obviously or clearly and just like these two words in English, 明明 functions as an adverb in Chinese. 这明明是烤鸭的鸭. This is clearly the duck from roast duck. 他明明说了不要想这个. He clearly said you shouldn’t think about this.
- 我看他明明醒了，还装睡。／看我的。
- 这本书是我的。这本书明明是我的，你看，这儿还有我的名字呢。
We’ve got a pattern to go over 挺 + adjective or verb phrase + 的. Now, this pattern sets up meaning of high degree like 挺好的 pretty good, 挺喜欢的 like a lot, 挺好吃的 very delicious. Now in today’s dialogue the teacher said to Mike 没想到你的想象力还挺丰富的. I wouldn’t have thought your imagination was so rich.
- 烤鸭好吃吗？／挺好吃的。
OK everyone it’s just about time to call it a day. But before we go, I’d like to read a comment that was sent into us by Sam in Singapore. Now, he says:
“I like your show. And I like the dialogues. But sometimes I don’t feel like your grammar explanations are detailed enough.”
Well, we’ll work on that Sam, we’re always up against time restrictions. But that shouldn’t get in the way of explaining things as clearly as possible. I completely agree with you. So we’ll try to be more clear in the future. Grammars certainly isn’t an easy thing in any language to study. So thank you very much for your comment.
好了, 今天我们没有时间了. We’re out of time for the day. But thanks for tuning into today’s Growing up with Chinese everyone. 大家, 加油, don’t forget to visit our website. See you all next time. Bye for now.
