Everyday Mandarin conversation

Make an arrangement, choose what you want, and ask for missing information. These three lessons connect time, desire and question words to the details a listener actually needs.

Give a usable day and clock time

The time lesson places an occasion before the main verb and builds combined expressions from a broad period to a specific hour. It compares today, tomorrow, weekdays, dates and clock times without treating Mandarin verbs as English tense forms.

A clock occasion, a duration and a frequency expression answer different questions. The lesson keeps those differences explicit, then uses a dialogue to establish the day before confirming the hour.

State a desire or a selected item

The wants lesson places 想 before an activity and introduces 要 for a selected item or a stronger intention in context. It distinguishes a present desire from a general preference and from the availability of a drink.

Negative desire, prohibition and lack of necessity use different useful patterns. The lesson explains 不想, 不要 and 不用 without claiming that one English gloss covers every occurrence. Simple requests with 请 provide an additional way to ask another person to act.

Ask for the actual missing information

The question word lesson begins from the answer you need. A person, owner, object, location, destination, time, quantity, reason and method each require a suitable question expression in the right position.

The ordinary information question does not also need 吗. Produce a statement, replace one missing detail with a question phrase, and answer it. Then change the kind of missing detail while keeping the same activity so that the contrast becomes clear.

Sources

• MIT OpenCourseWare, Julian Wheatley: Unit 3
• MIT OpenCourseWare, Julian Wheatley: Unit 4
• Tokyo University of Foreign Studies: Information questions
• Tokyo University of Foreign Studies: Questions with zenme
• Tokyo University of Foreign Studies: Quantity questions with ji and duoshao
• Tokyo University of Foreign Studies: Clock times
• Tokyo University of Foreign Studies: Desire intention and obligation
• Tokyo University of Foreign Studies: Duration of actions
• Tokyo University of Foreign Studies: Requests and prohibitions