First episode 11 - 奋斗

[rob07]

Was anyone else annoyed at how they treated the deaf brother of lulu? They treated him like he was mentally handicapped and just taught him how to smile. That really pissed me off, why don't you teach him some sign language so he can actually express himself, instead of just infatalizing him with "笑一个“。

Been a while, but I think I assumed he actually was mentally handicapped as well.

[mk121]

I've been watching this for the past few days and i'm 7 episodes in. The show is pretty interesting. I find the business aspects of the show more interesting than the relationships which can get monotonous to sit through sometimes but it easily was a good first chinese television show to watch and i am glad a few of my chinese friends recommended it. B)

[Dai Anna]

Thanks so much for posting all the vocabulary! I've brought the DVD by chance last year and started to watch a few days ago - without all the help I wouldn't get much of it, because they are talking so fast and so much about business. Pretty interesting though.

[Hesham119]

Hello every one

finished watching episode 2 and here is list of the vocabulary I couldn't find in a dictionary

I am not sure if you have covered it here as I havent read the thread thoroughly

Thanks to my Chinese friends they gave me a clear explanation of these words, I will post their explanation here so every body can benefit from it

你还哥们儿 : (Very close male friends usually call each other 哥们儿 but in this episode it is said in an ironic way

哥们儿：就是非常非常好的朋友，一般是男的对男的说的。但有时男的对女的说“你是我哥们儿”就是说他们已经是忘记性别的好朋友了（在中国最好别对女孩子说这个，因为这样就代表你一定不会喜欢她，不会做她男朋友了，明白吗）

有劲没劲啊 Beijing dialect it is equal to 有意思 in pu tong hua which means do you think thats interesting?

这里面的“劲”就读jin（四声）意思是：你做这个事有没有意思啊（一般指做这个事没意思、无聊）（北京方言）

真没劲：没意思、无聊

没劲儿：没力气 （这两个是不一样的哦）

账两清 it means that two friends has no debts left between them

你不欠我的我也不欠你的，我们谁也不欠谁的钱了，引申义：我们没有关系了。

领人特大一人情 领+somebody+ 人情 means you owe someone a favor

还得长得顺 pleasing to eye

看他会顺眼

自己出来干事业那都是幌子doing something under the name of something else 假借某件事的名义

三角恋 some kind of complicated relationship for example a boy loves a girl but that girl loves another boy

男的喜欢女的但女的喜欢另一个男的（反过来也行）

我这亲爸现在都能搞得你神神鬼鬼的 to act secretively, like a thief in the night

鬼鬼祟祟，十分神秘。

你的话只能听三句 it means he says so many non true talking and the true words are so few 意思就是这个人说的话很多不真实的，真话少。

好 以后我就说前三句 he takes it in a joking way and tells her he will from now on he will only say 3 words

插一脚 interrupt

参与

等你老了 我就喜欢你历尽沧桑啊 because of experiencing so many situations become more wisdom

经历了很多事、成熟、有智慧（一般都说老人、或是像老人一样有很多人生经历的人）

把你最卑鄙的计划当中的一半儿说出来让我听听。 卑鄙 immoral

品行恶劣，不道德

要是让带家属就好了 it means if we just get married thats enough

自己的另一半，男生的话就是带女朋友或者妻子。家属的本意是家里的所有人包括配偶和孩子，但是如果说话的是恋人而非妻子，“家属”就表达了他想跟对方结婚的想法

你再给我脱了 you are undressing me ( Hua zi was forcing xiang nan to give him money, so he puts his hand in xiang nan's pocket, xiang nan tells hua zi that he is getting his clothes undressed this way)

脱就是脱衣服的简称。把衣服脱了（这是把字句 不知道你学过没有）因为对方知道你要脱的是衣服，所以就省略了

陆涛 你说咱么有这号自私的朋友 （ 号) is a measure word means kind (of sth, some one )

“这号”是“这样”的意思（北京方言）

自私：selfish

有什么抹不开面儿的 what is embarrassing about it

抹不开面儿：不好意思、害羞（北京方言）

[renzhe]

Good work! It's appreciated!

[Hesham119]

Wow renzhe great work with episode 3

I started watching it and your word list was a great help

[Hesham119]

人家可是亲生父亲，要搁你早一溜烟儿，没影了。

一溜烟儿：形容跑得很快。means runs away so quickly

没影了： I think without a trace

the whole sentence translation : 如果是你，你早就一溜烟跑了，没影了。（因为你不是亲生父亲……）If it was you you would run away because you are not the real father ( still cant get it )

冥冥中自有天意 or 冥冥之中自有天意

example: 人从生下来他的一生就注定结局，这是冥冥之中自有天意

it means it is written (destiny) for example every one will die this cant be changed

我知道， 二十二年的事儿，不是一两句能说清楚。但这件事儿始终是我心头的一块病

心头的一块病：一直不能释怀，放不下，一直惦念着 something that cant be forgotten, always thinking about it

空落落：it is read that way kong1 lao4 lao4 although in dictionary it is read this way kong1 luo4 luo4, when I asked my chinese friends they told me that it is the Beijing accent 京腔

熔炉：（ 熔炼金属的炉子，亦用以比喻锻炼人的思想的品质的环境）refers to the environment which trains ones thinking

单调乏味：A boring life where every day is the same with no change

吹这次牛之前好像打过一小草稿: 一般说“吹牛不打草稿”，形容说话夸张、不经思索、脱口而出，这里说“吹牛好像打过草稿”，结合语境应该是说吹牛吹得实在太假了，好像事先想过了、想好了、再说，形容说话极度夸张、不符合事实

it means this time your bragging is so exaggerated doesnt sound real at all

五证：房地产商在预售商品房时应具备《建设用地规划许可证》、《建设工程规划许可证》、《建筑工程施工许可证》、《国有土地使用证》和《商品房预售许可证》，简称“五证”。

The five permits which need to be prepared before selling houses and apartments:Land use permit, building permit, ........，...........，the permit of selling。 ( I couldnt find the equal meaning for the the other to permits

聪明反被聪明误：(形容自以为聪明，反倒被自己的“聪明”（此指小聪明，贬义）耽误或者坑害) If you thought you were intelligent while you were not, you could hurt yourself with your fake intelligence

PS: The Chinese explanation is what my Chinese friends told me or the explanations I found in the Chinese chinese dictionary

The English explanations are mine

if there are any mistakes your correction would be really appreciated

[Unfadeable]

Sorry if the answer to this is really obvious, but I'm trying to get these links to work to no avail--is there a verycd tutorial link somewhere? Tudou just loads interminably and on verycd I can only find online streaming links (all of which appear as page not found errors to me). Can someone describe how to get the ed2k links to appear? Tried searching around for a solution but no luck...thanks

[renzhe]

I'm afraid that things have changed since these things were posted.

VeryCD has been 'legalised', which means that they don't host any links anymore. You can try the eMule integrated search instead, they should still be on the network.

Streaming sites like youku and tudou are now blocked outside of China (at least as far as Chinese TV series are concerned).

You could also try searching on streaming sites like letv.com and sohu, I think that these haven't been blocked yet. Sorry, I don't have any working links handy at this particular moment.

[Hesham119]

heres a youtube link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIQP1diXRqQ

high quality

[Unfadeable]

Ah, okay, thanks to both of you. Youtube looks like the easiest option, I tried connecting to emule's verycd server and searching 奋斗...nothing comes up, I'm probably doing something wrong. It's funny, I used to use all these p2p programs in the past but only a few years later they seem so complicated and out of date compared to the ease of torrents and megaupload links!

Thanks again, guys.

[flippant]

I finally sat down with the first episode today.

The opening scene with the four guys was - for me - extremely hard to follow. A good deal of new words, but also the sheer speed combined with the Beijing tendency to swallow most sounds.

I had to use the subtitles *a lot*, but I could've watched the entire thing and glossed it; however, I think my vocabulary is what is holding my listening comprehension back, so this is much needed.

The suicide scene with Gao Qiang was horrible. The stoic tear immediately followed by an extremely unrealistic doll flopping over the balcony was too much.

[icebear]

I'm up to episode 9 and enjoying it so far. As mentioned, at times the Beijing 儿话 can be difficult to get through, especially from the guys, but overall I'm able to follow enough to keep it engaging. I'm not using it as a active learning method - I'm not pausing to gloss vocab from subtitles, creating flashcards, etc. I add enough new words everyday to Skritter as is from textbooks and podcasts that I feel I'm keeping a fast pace with already. This is more to enjoy the self satisfaction of being able to follow native content, and perhaps reinforce/remind me of some things I've studied already.

[icebear]

Very late commenting here, but caught a scene that might bring a smile to others (even those not following). http://www.youtube.c...h?v=julSPRnvNy0 around 29:30 starts a elaborate dinner they're having, which to push the bill up to 10,000 they order a fancy bottle of something I'm not familiar with. The intense endorsement of the frivolity, and finally the face-by-bottle shot describing how great the case is, had me in tears. Maybe I just have a funny sense of humor, but thought others might find it delightfully absurd also.

[icebear]

I've continued making my way through this and as an exercise for myself transcribed one whole episode recently (#24). It was slow enough that I don't think I'd do it for more than a few episodes per season, but also helpful in picking up essentially every detail that happened within that episode, including a few words I've studied but wouldn't have recognized in flowing speech (gotta hate those).

I think there's probably a lot of value in transcribing the first few episodes, or maybe one every 5-10 episodes in a series, because I've managed to coast pretty nicely since then on a lot of vocab that I passively followed in that episode which keeps coming up again. Not going to drill it into my brain too deeply (as in recall later), but it does take me from following around 90% of the ideas and 60-70% of the specific dialogue to getting pretty much everything and understanding marginally more specific dialogue points.

奋斗24.txt

[renzhe]

Thank you for the transcript, I've linked to it from the first post. If you have any questions, do ask. This is the most complete First Episode thread, and the one that we recommend to newbies, so the more discussion and information we have, the better.

[rob07]

Anybody else watched the 奋斗 movie? It is not that recent, came out about a year and a half ago, but for some reason I have only just watched it. I really enjoyed it, but that was probably more for the nostalgia value of seeing 陆涛 and the gang again rather than the quality of the movie. It is interesting to see what is the same as the TV series and what is different (for example it is set in Shanghai rather than Beijing). The English name of the movie is "Stand by Me", which feels bizarre.

[rebor]

If anyone's having trouble finding the show online, it's still available on youku: http://www.soku.com/search_video/q_%E5%A5%8B%E6%96%97

[Ania]

It looks like this might be the show that is going to start my adventure with Chinese TV, hehe But I still have a long way to go, because right now I can't watch it without stopping at every line of text that appears and trying to decipher it, hehe It's definitely too early for me to watch and enjoy, so I'm gonna wait another year and see what happens ten

 

Any other relatively easy Chinese soaps you could recommend? Those types of shows usually have the easiest language, so I guess that would be a god place to start

[Nathan Mao]

I guess I've never been afraid of that kind of pain.

The first several TV serials I watched a few years ago required me to stop every line...often because even if my language level was good enough, the accent, speaking style, and context still made it difficult to understand.

 

The first episode of a TV serial used to take me two hours. By the 3rd or 4th I'd be down to 90 minutes. By #7 or 8 I'd be down to an hour for a 30-minute episode and by about #20, I could watch in real time and knock out 3-4 in a session.

 

I'm better than that now, but I still stop to read the subtitles at least a dozen times in the first few episodes until I get into the flow, and then once or twice per episode after that.

 

Since the transcript and vocab lists are available, I don't see any reason not to go ahead and dive in anyway.

 

But if that is too much pain, to the point that it discourages you, then of course my advice is wrong.