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Mandarin Pathways
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Lesson 14 of 15

Shopping with Mr. Zhang

Shop for clothes and apples, say something looks pretty, and ask when a shop opens

What you'll learn

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Lesson phases

New words in this lesson

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Writing characters

Where these characters come from

A bundle tied at both ends; taken as the sun rising behind a tree, hence 'east'.

西

A bird's nest; borrowed for 'west', the opposite of 东.

A single tally stroke — the simplest possible count.

A child with the top of the skull still open — hence 'child', and the -r suffix.

Two hands lifting the bar off a door: to open.

A cart seen from above — axle and wheels.

One enclosure inside another, drawn as a spiral: to go back.

Once a plant's root or calyx; borrowed long ago as the negative 'not'.

小 (small) with one more stroke: smaller still, hence 'few'.

Sentence patterns

了 for something already done

SubjectVerb + 了Object
买了衣服。
看见了我的车。
去了商店。

了 goes straight after the verb when the action is finished.

Tone pairs

Three-syllable words starting on tone 4.

Radicals in this lesson