Learn Chinese Chinesimple YCT4

There’s going to be a football match at school. How would you tell your classmates in Chinese what day it’s on? And how would you ask who wants to play?

Chinesimple, the app from Khanji School, offers a YCT 4 course for children and young people who already understand simple sentences in Mandarin Chinese. In this final course in our YCT series, you’ll listen to an announcement and a question. Then you’ll put them together to organise a match with your classmates. The explanations are in English.

WHAT’S HAPPENING NEXT FRIDAY?

Listen to 下星期五我们一起踢一场足球比赛 (‘We’re playing a football match together next Friday’). If you remember 踢足球, ‘play football’, from YCT 3, you’ve already got a clue about the sport. This time, listen for 比赛 (bǐsài) at the end. Here it means ‘match’.

Imagine you’re adding the match to your class calendar. You know what you’re playing. Which day would you put it under? Listen to the beginning again. 下星期五 means ‘Friday next week’.

WHO WANTS TO TAKE PART?

Now listen to 谁想参加乒乓球比赛？ (‘Does anyone want to take part in a table tennis tournament?’). Do you recognise 比赛 at the end? This time it refers to a table tennis competition. At the beginning, 谁想参加 means ‘who wants to take part?’ Try saying the whole question aloud as if you were asking your class.

Now it’s your turn to announce the football match and find some players. Use the first sentence to say when the match is on. Then take the second sentence and swap 乒乓球 (‘table tennis’) for 足球 (‘football’). Try asking the question before you read it here: 谁想参加足球比赛？ (‘Who wants to play in the football match?’). At home or in class, one of you can announce the match and the other can ask who’s up for it.

SAVE THE WORDS YOU WANT TO USE

Do you recognise 参加 (cānjiā) when you read it, but struggle to remember it when you want to ask who’s joining in? Look it up in the Chinese dictionary, listen to how it’s pronounced and add it to your flashcard deck. Next time you see the card, try asking the question without looking at the text.

You can practise writing, too. Look at 赛, the second character in 比赛. Watch the order of the strokes, try writing it yourself and then spot it in both sentences.

GET READY FOR YCT 4

Are you preparing for the YCT 4 exam? Practise with the vocabulary, sentences and exercises for this level. Listen to both examples again without reading along. Which one tells you when a match is on? In the other one, which sport are you being invited to play?

GET STARTED

Listen to the sentence about next Friday in Chinesimple. Imagine your classmates are in front of you. Announce the match in Chinese and ask who wants to play.