Short Scenes project 我们一起学口语吧

[StChris]

Hi

I've just finished watching 奋斗, a Chinese TV drama that's part of the First Episode Project (thanks to everyone, especially Renzhe for producing the vocab lists for that). My usual way of studying these episodes was to take a quick glance at the vocab list, watch the episode through (only pausing and rewinding when I really thought I'd missed an important point), and then selecting one scene I thought was good and drilling down on it a little deeper. Doing this gave me an idea - why not do a series that studies sinlge scenes from various TV shows and movies instead of whole entire series. For me, this approach has a number of benefits:

1) Those TV dramas can be over 30 hours long and not everyone has the time or patience to work their way through them, whereas a single scene is only a few minutes long.

2) Let's face it, while they're a good learning tool, there's a hell of a lot of chaff in your average Chinese drama. They normally start off kind of ok, but then have a tendency to spiral off into repetitiveness and silliness around half way through the series. I think the problem is they're just too long, meaning that the writers have too much time to fill, so get more and more desperate as time goes on. While I quite liked 奋斗, it would have been much better if the 33 episodes were cut down to 10-15. By just picking individual scenes from different series we can take the best parts from each, and avoid most of the nonsense.

3) A short scene can be analysed in more depth than a whole TV series, so we can go into more detail about the language used.

 

I'll start off with the first scene below. Anyone else who has any good scenes, please feel free to post. Hopefully we can start a nice little collection. Just make sure to give a little background info to set the scene, and a link to youku (and say what time the scene starts and ends).

[StChris]

Restuarant Scene, 奋斗, Ep. 1, (27:14 - 30:49)  http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODUyMDYyNzI=.html

Scene background:
There are 4 characters in this scene. 夏琳 is the girl with the short hair and is the girlfriend of 关鹏 (handsome older guy in the suit). 米莱 is the sassy girl with the long hair and the 4th person is her boyfriend 陆涛. The three young people have just graduated from uni and 夏琳 is preparing to go to Paris is study fashion design. 米莱 has already decided to give up a chance to go to study in the US for the sake of staying in Beijing with 陆涛, making 关鹏 feel a bit put out that his girlfriend 夏琳 isn't doing the same for him. 米莱 is good friends with 关鹏 and 夏琳, so 关鹏 has asked her to bring up the subject at dinner. 陆涛 spotted 夏琳 a few days ago, and it was 一见钟情 (love at first sight for him.

Vocab and grammar
浓醋        some kind of thick vinegar
当面        to somebody's face (as apposed to behind someone's back)
丢下        to abandon
我怕我前脚一走，他后脚就被别的女人给抢了.
Useful sentence structure here: 前脚x，后脚就y  As soon as X happens, then Y will happen.
吃闲饭        be an idle loafer
你又不是不知道    a set phrase which just means "you ought to already know this"
出路        way out (of a problem)
时装公司    fashion company
肯        agree to, be willing to
打预防针    to vaccinate against a disease
鬼才相信    only a ghost would believe it (obviously false)
混        live life, drift along
缝纫机        sewing machine
扑        throw oneself at
衣裳        clothes
尤其        especially, particularly
愤世嫉俗    cynical
省得        so as to avoid
意犹未尽    wish to continue with something, to not have said all that one wishes to say

Summary
After a discussion of why 夏琳 doesn't stay in China to be with her boyfriend instead of going to study in Paris, the talk turns to why doesn't 陆涛 go to America with 米莱. After saying that there's nothing for him to do in the US, he then  launches into a cynical rant about how 夏琳 could easily just make and sell overpriced poncy clothes to pretentious rich people in Beijing, instead of going all the way to France. There's obviously some chemistry between 陆涛 and 夏琳, so 陆涛's jealous girlfriend jokingly suggests that they should carry on the conversation in private later. Calling her bluff 陆涛 asks 夏琳's number, and she gives him 20, of which one is correct (she's heard that 陆涛 has a special memory for numbers). As a postcript, those two really do end up doing the dirty on their partners.
 

[StChris]

I'll add more scenes next week. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve this, please let me know. Feel free to contribute your own scenes too. I've tried to add more details that I thought might make it more accessible to intermediate learners. I'm not so bad on vocab now, it's catching what they say that's the problem for me, as me ear still hasn't adjusted to the Beijing accents. Actually, this scene's ok, it's just 陆涛 who takes a bit of effort for me to understand. There's a young Taiwanese girl who pops up later in the series. Although really annoying, hearing her soft accent after all that Beijing erhua is like drinking warm honeyed milk after a heavy night on cheap baijiu. I'll try and get a scene between 华子 and 猪头 later, then we can really test our Beijing accent comprehension skills!

[StChris]

Father tells off his profligate son

北京爱情故事 Ep. 2 (29:54 - 31:22)

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzQwNDkzODg4.html

 

Scene background:

A common scene in Chinese dramas, a father gives a telling off to his spoilt rich brat of a son (but the son seems to get the upper hand this time). The son had secretly ordered workers at his father's office building to turn on a series of lights at the same time, making a "heart" shape appear on the outside, in order to impress his latest girlfriend. Daddy isn't too happy about this...

 

Vocab:
魔术        magic (I think it's short for magician in this case)

投资        invest

命令        order, command

紧急        urgent

核心        nucleus, core (not quite sure how this fits the dialogue to be honest)

任务        assignment, job

协同作战 co-operation

假传圣旨  deliver a false order

调研         "investigation and research" in the dictionary, but seems to mean "test" here

凝聚力     cohesion

荒唐         tell a preposterous tale/lie

穿梭         shuttle back and forth

整个         entire(ly), complete

败家子      spendthrift, wastrel

玩意儿      toy/plaything (but here means "thing" in a derogatory way)

败光          squander one's fortune

纨绔子弟   profligate son of rich parents, dandy (lit. silk trousers boy)

风采          elegant demeanour

言传身教  teach by personal example as well as words

遗传基因  I think he just means "it's in the genes" here

 

No need for a summary for this one I think.

[Kev]

Do you have an app that if you need to, you can slow down the dialogue and move back and forth in time increments you set? A la this:

"Practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. Ten minutes working hard on one sentence again and again is much better than twenty minutes on 40 sentences. Here’s how a good session goes. Listen to the sentence a few times. Your software must allow you to slow it down if you need to. You should break it up into smaller pieces and listen again and again, trying to figure it out. Then and only then, check the written copy. NOW it’s time for you to speak. Listen once more then speak the item. Listen again to see if you think it sounds right (once you are a little advanced and you’ve mastered MPs for the items in the sentence, this should be ok to do without the teacher). Listen and speak the item again. If it’s a sentence you might want to start with just the first few words. Repeat these, and each time through, add the next word or phrase. Listen/speak. Listen/speak. Let me say again, ten minutes on one sentence can actually be very valuable. Don’t skimp on the speaking, even if it sounds like a waste of time. One day you’ll find yourself speaking the same words or, more importantly, “structures” and sentences you’ve made up, and you won’t know where it has come from. It will be perfect and your brain will have figured it out for itself."

[roddy]

These look good - you might want to try adding in some questions - What is A angry about? What phrase does B use to indicate she's sorry?

 

Or maybe post the English side of the vocab and see if people can fill in the Chinese side? Give people something to do and they're more likely to engage. 

 

You're welcome to post a new topic for each of these, I think. 

[StChris]

Kev, it's easy to download the clips from youku and play them using VLC player (which allows you to adjust the speed). It's only the first time around that I have trouble getting all they say. After watching three times at normal speed I can get amost all of it. I think the clips are already pretty short, but you can split them up if you want to. I normally just make sure that I'm familiar with the new vocab, watch the clip a few times, then turn the sound down low and try to repeat after the characters, copying their accents, intonation, tones ect as best I can, while recording myself. I then listen to the recording, note the places where I didn't sound so natural, then try another recording. I believe that listening to yourself speak is the most brutal, but effective, way to improve your pronunciation (assuming that your listening skills are good enough to identify mistakes).

 

Roddy, thanks for the suggestions, but I don't want to invest too much time in this. I just thought that, as I'm doing all the donkey work of selecting scenes and searching for vocab anyway, I might as well spend an extra few minutes copying and pasting the info to here as well, in case anyone else finds it useful. I'd probably suggest that they use them as I described above, but it's up to them of course (I've only just begun, so I'm not sure whether this method will bear fruit yet). I don't want to spam your boards with these, so I'll stick to keeping them in this thread for now. I'll post 10 scenes, then I'll decided whether I'll carry on.

[roddy]

Fair enough. It's not spamming when the admin invites it though - and I can always merge them if necessary. 

[StChris]

Fatherly advice

奋斗 Ep. 2  (19:22 - 21:58)

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODUyMDc0NjQ=.html

 

Scene background:

The young guy has just graduated from university and his step-father is going to give him some advice, but they don't see eye-to-eye...

 

渊博           erudite
视野           view, field of vision
宽阔           broad
宽容           tolerant, lenient
人云亦云    echo other's views, have no views of one's own
无论如何    in any case..., at any rate...
成天           all day long
转化           transform, change
茶几           coffee table
自满自足    complacent, self-satisfied
一成不变    unchanging, unalterable
自食其力    support oneself by one's own labour
前途无量    have boundless prospects
 

[StChris]

Ok, I'll post the next one in a new thread.

[tysond]

Regarding the Restaurant scene (post #2).

 

Thanks StChris!

 

I quite enjoyed 陆涛's rant about the fashion industry. 

 

I watched it twice, first time at full speed caught about half the meaning of what was going on, but not any of the fashion related language.

Then paused and read every subtitle, apart from what St Chris provided I picked up the words below.  So now I understand the scene pretty well.

Just downloading it now so I can play with the files and listen.  Good choice with the Beijing accents.

I need to understand accents like 陆涛.  He seems to be driving all of Beijing's taxis.

 

 

舍不得 - to hate to part with

不放心 - to be uneasy/concerned about

意见 - idea/view/opinion/suggestion

大款 - tycoon/moneybags

精力 - energy

牺牲  - sacrifice oneself

话又说回来 - returning to our main topic / that said / anyhow...

死等 - wait forever (until death)

时装设计  - fashion design

盖房子 - build a house

懒 - lazy

劲儿 - interest

顺眼 - pleasing to the eye / agreeable

显得 - appear / seem

 

Also, I don't think the two bowls of sauce ever arrived.  

[StChris]

tysond, thanks for the extra work on that scene. I haven't been able to get online for the past few days, but I have some new scenes to post now. As per Roddy's recommendation I'll post them in separate threads.

[renzhe]

Cool work, keep it up!

These types of materials can be really useful for beginners and intermediate learners.