On 11 August, I had another Mandarin speaking lesson with Yufan on Preply. Our main topic was 自然灾害 (zìrán zāihài) — natural disasters.
The topic was surprisingly relevant because Hungary has been very dry lately.
I told Yufan:
匈牙利干旱，很久没下雨了。
Hungary is experiencing drought, and it hasn’t rained for a long time.
We also talked about the Danube:
多瑙河的水位下降了。
The water level of the Danube has fallen.
There were already several new words for me here.
干旱 (gānhàn) — drought
水位 (shuǐwèi) — water level
下降 (xiàjiàng) — to fall, decrease
干涸 (gānhé) — to dry up
Then we moved on to the heat.
I told Yufan:
上个星期最高温度是41度。
Last week, the highest temperature was 41°C.
She was surprised. She hadn’t expected Hungary to get that hot.
This week, however:
这个星期降温了，现在最高温度是35度。
This week it has cooled down. Now the highest temperature is 35°C.
Another useful word:
降温 (jiàngwēn) — for the temperature to fall; to cool down
We talked about what people should do when the temperature suddenly drops:
突然降温应该做什么？
What should you do when the temperature suddenly drops?
That brought us to 预防感冒 (yùfáng gǎnmào) — preventing a cold — and things like 多喝热水drinking hot water , 多吃含有vitamin C的食物 eating food containing vitamin C and 穿适合的衣服 wearing suitable clothes.
I asked whether Chinese say 喝药 “drink medicine” or 吃药 “eat medicine” because in Japanese I know they say 薬を飲みます (kusuri o nomimasu), literally “drink medicine.” To which she said: 看情况 – it depends. It depends on the form. Somehow this led to learning the words:
液体 (yètǐ) — liquid
固体 (gùtǐ) — solid
And this was probably one of my favourite little discoveries from the lesson.
We started talking about yoghurt.
In Chinese, it is very common to say:
我喝酸奶。
I drink yoghurt.
Yufan explained that 喝酸奶 (hē suānnǎi) is commonly used even when the yoghurt is quite thick. 吃酸奶 (chī suānnǎi) is also used, especially when yoghurt is treated more obviously as something spoonable, but 喝酸奶 is a very normal expression.
I found that particularly interesting because we had just been talking about 液体 and 固体. Whether the yoghurt seems more liquid or more solid does not necessarily determine which verb Chinese speakers naturally use.
我觉得很有意思。 😄
We also practised:
室内 (shìnèi) — indoors
室外 (shìwài) — outside
户外 (hùwài) — outdoors
and the sentence:
不要长时间待在户外。
Don’t stay outdoors for a long time.
From there the conversation wandered even further.
We somehow ended up talking about 温泉酒店 (wēnquán jiǔdiàn) — hot spring hotels — including rose baths, green tea baths, milk baths and medicinal baths.
And eventually we went back to the topic of 自然灾害 natural disasters again.
Wrapping up with the question of whether my country had ever experienced 火山爆发 (huǒshān bàofā) — volcanic eruption.
So what began as a conversation about natural disasters somehow travelled from drought in Hungary, to the Danube, 41-degree weather, sudden temperature changes, yoghurt, staying indoors, hot springs and finally volcanoes.
That is actually what I like about these speaking lessons. I never quite know where the conversation is going to go, and along the way I pick up words that I probably would not have deliberately chosen to study from a vocabulary list.
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