Adventures on the Second Ring Road

About

Stephen looked at his cab driver with newfound respect. Although traffic on the second ring road was

otherwise touch-and-go, here at last was a man attempting to change it. Hunched over the steering wheel

with his eyes on the road, the driver pushed forward at a slow but steady pace, sometimes lagging behind

and sometimes nearly hitting the vehicle in front but never actually stopping. It was traffic smoothing

applied as expertly as Stephen had ever seen done, as if this one man were trying to wrest Beijing

congestion into shape through force of will alone.

Learning Chinese? Even if you don't speak any Chinese, this lesson should be at your level of difficulty.

What we'll learn is how to double-up a number of high-frequency verbs in order to make suggestions.

There's a simple trick here that's impossible to forget once you've learned it and using it will help you

sound a lot more fluent than people who are learning from regular textbooks. So if you're working towards

learning Chinese take a listen and see what you think. And if you have any questions, let us know in the

discussion section below.

Sentences

师傅,醒醒,醒醒!

shīfu , xǐngxing , xǐngxing !

Driver, wake up, wake up!

到了,到了。十块,十块....

dào le , dào le 。 shí kuài , shí kuài . . . .

We're here, we're here.... That'll be ten kuai.

你刚才睡着了。

nǐ gāngcái shuìzháo le 。

You were just sleeping.

没有,没有啊,我们去哪儿?

méiyǒu , méiyǒu a , wǒmen qù nǎr ?

No I wasn't.... Where are we going?

Vocabulary

师傅

shīfu

driver

noun

到了

dào le

to have arrived

verb

十块

shí kuài

10 kuai

phrase

刚才

gāngcái

just now

adverb

醒醒

xǐngxing

wake up

phrase

看看

kànkan

take a look

phrase

听听

tīngting

take a listen

phrase

尝尝

chángchang

taste it

phrase

试试

shìshi

try it out

phrase