4.2 Where Are You From — Epoché
What you will be able to do Ask where somebody is from, in the three forms Chinese uses, and answer for yourself. Say what languages you speak, using the verb for a learned ability. Turn a place name into the word for a person from that place, which Chinese does with one character. Read two dialogues built entirely from real sentences. Prerequisites : 4.1, which gives the greetings and the two words for you. This is the conversation that happens in the first two minutes of meeting anybody, and a foreigner in China can expect it often. It is also the easiest conversation in the course to prepare, because the questions are fixed and the answers are built on a few fixed patterns. Dialogue A Two students outside a classroom, much like the pair in 4.1, so the plain word for you throughout. A 你是哪里人？ [1] — Where are you from? B 我是中国人。 [2] 你是哪国人？ [3] — I'm Chinese. Which country are you from? A 我是日本人。 [4] — I'm Japanese. B 你会说中文吗？ [5] — Can you speak Chinese? A 我在学汉语。 [6] — I'm learning it. B 太好了！ [7] — That's great! Notice what the second line does. The answer names a country and turns it into a kind of person by adding one character — the word for person — so that a China-person is a Chinese. That works for a city or a village as well as for a country. Dialogue B A conversation with somebody met on a train in China, still informal but between strangers. A is Chinese. A 你是美国人吗？ [8] — Are you American? B 不，我是英国人。 [9] — No, I'm British. A 你住在哪里？ [10] — Where do you live? B 我住在美国。 [11] — I live in the States. A 中国欢迎你！ [12] — Welcome to China! B 谢谢！ [13] — Thanks! A's last line, literally "China welcomes you", welcomes B to China, where B is a visitor. B's answer about where he lives uses yet another verb, the one for living, with the word for at between it and the place: live-at-America. To say where somebody comes from, everyday speech uses the word for from, then the place, then the verb for come: from-Britain-come, in the table below. The place stands before the verb, not after it as in English, and this frame is more usual in speech than the formal verb in the same table. Saying It Another Way Seven ways of asking and answering, all of them from the corpus. The differences are of politeness and of what exactly is being asked. Chinese English When 你是哪里人？ [1] Where are you from? the plain question, and the one to use 您是哪里人？ [14] Where are you from? the same question with the polite pronoun — to somebody older or senior 你们是哪里人？ [15] Where are you from? the same question to more than one person 你是哪国人？ [3] Which country are you from? asking for the country rather than the place 我来自中国。 [16] I'm from China. an answer that names the place with a formal verb meaning to come from 他从英国来。 [17] He's from Britain. the everyday frame: from, the place, then the verb for come 我是中国人。 [2] I'm Chinese. an answer that makes the place into a kind of person: a China person How This Differs from English Three things are worth naming. Only one of these answers uses the verb to be. The sentence for I am Chinese uses the linking verb because it joins two nouns; but the sentence for I am from China uses a verb meaning to come, and the sentence for I live in America uses a verb meaning to live. English uses be for the first two; a learner who copies "I am from" and simply puts the linking verb in front of the verb for coming, or in front of the verb for living, gets a sentence that is wrong or means something else. (A longer pattern that wraps the place in the linking verb and a closing particle does exist; it is taught in a later phase.) The verb for a learned ability is separate. English uses can for permission, possibility and skill alike. Chinese has three different words, and the one in this lesson is the one for skills you have learned — which is why it is the verb used with languages. Lesson 2.12 showed its other job, saying what will happen. The question word stays where the answer goes. The question for where are you from has the question word in the position the answer will occupy, so the word order of question and answer is identical. The question word is not moved to the front of the sentence, which is one fewer thing to learn than in English. New words Most of these words have been listed before, most recently in lessons 3.1 and 3.6, and the note of each repeated word gives the lesson that first had it. They are listed again with what they do in these two conversations. Word Meaning Notes 哪里 zh nǎlǐ （ 哪裡 ） nǎlǐ pronoun · where Note for English speakers The first character is from 1.11. Also the polite deflection of a compliment, said twice. 你是哪里人？ Where are you from? 国 zh guó （ 國 ） guó noun · country Note for English speakers From 1.10. One character; it is inside the names of many countries, though not of the one for Japan. 你是美国人吗？ Are you American? 不，我是英国人。 No, I'm British. 人 zh rén noun · person Note for English speakers From 1.1. Attached to a place name it makes the word for somebody from there, so a China-person is a Chinese. 我是日本人。 I'm Japanese. 中国 zh Zhōngguó （ 中國 ） Zhōngguó noun · China Note for English speakers From 1.10. Middle plus country. 美国 zh Měiguó （ 美國 ） Měiguó noun · the United States Note for English speakers From 0.3. Beautiful plus country — a sound borrowing turned into characters that mean something. 英国 zh Yīngguó （ 英國 ） Yīngguó noun · Britain Note for English speakers From 3.1. Brave plus country, chosen for the sound of the first syllable. 日本 zh Rìběn noun · Japan Note for English speakers From 3.1. Sun plus origin; the Japanese read the same two characters as Nihon. 会 zh huì （ 會 ） huì verb · can, to know how to Note for English speakers From 1.7. Ability learned rather than permission or circumstance. Used with languages and skills; it can also say what will happen. 你会说中文吗？ Can you speak Chinese? 说 zh shuō （ 說 ） shuō verb · to speak Note for English speakers From 1.3. With a language as its object it needs no preposition. 中文 zh Zhōngwén noun · Chinese (the language) Note for English