Dialogue 3 and homework

New words

服务员 fúwùyuán n. waiter or waitress

If we call the waiter or waitress in person we don’t need to distinguish the gender as in English, we just use 服务员 if you need to explain the gender specifically to others, you can use 男 or 女before 服务员, for example:

男服务员 nán fúwùyuán

女服务员nǚ fúwùyuán

Language points

兼语句 Pivotal Sentences: S1+V1+O1/S2+V2+(O2)

We have learnt the verb 让 in the previous dialogue王老师让我给大卫打电话。 Have you notice that there are two verbs in the sentence?

Verb1让 Verb2 打电话

The object of the first verb我 is also the subject of the second verb.

让我 我给大卫打电话

In This kind of sentence the first verb is often a causative verb like 请 qǐng to invite, 让 ràng to let, and 叫 jiào to ask.

Let’s see more examples:

我请你吃饭。

老师让我们说汉语。

妈妈叫我喝牛奶。

In this structure, the verb 2 could be reduplicated, and there can be no object 2, such as

你让我想想。

我叫人看看。

Dialogue 3

A:服务员，我房间的门打不开了。Fúwùyuán, wǒ fánɡjiān de mén dǎ bu kāi le 。

Excuse me, I can’t open my door.

B:您住哪个房间？Nín zhù nǎ ge fángjiān?

Which room do you stay in?

A:317。Sān yāo qī.

Room 317.

B:好的，我叫人去看看。Hǎo de, wǒ jiào rén qù kànkɑn 。

OK. I’ll send someone to have a check.

Let’s read it again without Pinyin.

A:服务员，我房间的门打不开了。

B:您住哪个房间？

A:317。

B:好的，我叫人去看看。

If you were B, please retell the text by yourself.

我住317， 我房间的门打不开了，所以我去找服务员，服务员说叫人去看看。

Homework

When you next go to a Chinese restaurant to have dinner please address the waiter or waitress in Chinese.