CALPER CHINESE SAMPLE MATERIAL © HONGYIN TAO

 

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire         Baiwan Fuweng  百万富翁

 

 

Introduction

 

This lesson presents a sample of everyday conversations where speakers describe things; in this particular case it is the speakers talk about their favorite TV show: the Chinese version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. When they comment on objects such as TV shows, they describe what is involved, why it is interesting, how things compare with others, and, finally, very often they give details or specific episodes of events to make the conversation interesting.  

 

When working on the text, pay attention to 1) how comparative structures are used for both similar things and unlike things; 2) how speakers express different degrees and qualities; and 3) how speakers express an opinion with qualifying (non-straightforward) and vague expressions.

 

This sample is organized as follows.

 

I. Background Information (see bottom of this page)

 

II. Text              A) The simplified character version without Pinyin

                                   B) The simplified character version with Pinyin                

                                   C) The traditional character version without Pinyin

                                   D) The traditional character version with Pinyin

                         

                                   ♫ You can hear the audio (in mp3 format) here ♫

 

III. Line-by-Line Commentary

 

IV. Vocabulary List Based on Order of Appearance in the Text 

 

V. Word List Based on Frequency of Occurrence, Plus Concordance Lines

 

VI. Exercises and Activities

 

 

I. Background Information

 

The conversation is conducted between a couple (M1 and F) and a male student (M2), all of them are mainland Chinese students in the Los Angeles area. Their ages are between 25-30. They are apartment mates and are familiar with each other. The talk is conducted while the couple are chatting in the living room and M2 is preparing food in the kitchen.

 

To proceed, the user is recommended to listen to the audio recording first by clicking the audio link above, before read (the various versions of) the transcribed text.