“Duì bu qǐ” a music video

02/19/2016
Bonus Videos

This video has 2 parts: an amusing scene between a Chinese dumpling vendor and a foreigner, and then an excellent music video that could have easily been inspired by the scene. One of the comments on the youtube site said, “this should be the national anthem of Mandarin learners.”

The translated dialog below is from the first scene. It’s an example of why we need to pay attention to tones. The joke hinges on the fact that “dumplings” and “sleep” have the same pronunciation, but different tones. So the vendor is totally confused.

Here is the audio (only) from the first scene.

Pinyin	English	Chinese
Hello, měiguó rén, měiguó rén, nǐ hǎo.	Hello, American, American, Hi!	美国人，美国人，你好
Nǐ hǎo, wǒ chī yīngguó rén.	Hi, I eat English people.	你好，我吃英国人。
Ó, nǐ yīngguó rén a, bù hǎoyìsi, bù hǎoyìsi, wǒmen měiguó chūlái.	Oh, you are English eh? Sorry, sorry, we are from America.	哦，你英国人啊，不好意思，不好意思，我们美国出来。
Wǒ yào shuìjiào.	I want to sleep.	我要睡觉。
Nǐ hěn lèi ma? Nǐ yào shuìjiào.	Are you tired? You should sleep.	你很累吗？你要睡觉。
Bù lèi, bù lèi, wǒ yào qù shuìjiào.	No, No. I want to go to bed.	不累，不累，我要去睡觉。
Nǐ yào qù shuìjiào ā? Wǒmen zhè biān jiù kāi shuǐjiǎo de nèi.	You want to go to bed eh? We only make dumplings here.	你要去睡觉阿？我们这边就开水饺的内
Ó, duìbùqǐ wǒ de zhōngwén bù hǎo.	Oh, sorry, my Chinese is bad.	哦，对不起我的中文不好。
Zhōngwén bù hǎo? Gāo xiàohuà a?	Chinese is bad? … its a big joke?	中文不好。好高笑话啊？
Xièxie	Thank you	谢谢

Improve your pronunciation! After listening to the audio, try recording your own voice. Click here to repeat the last audio played

	Pinyin	English
高笑话	gāo xiào huà	big joke
英国人	Yīng guó rén	British person
饺子	jiǎozi	dumplings
不好意思	bù hǎo yì si	to be sorry
这边	zhè biān	here
谢谢	xiè xie	thanks
你好	nǐ hǎo	hello
美国人	Měi guó rén	American
对不起	duì bu qǐ	excuse me
开水	kāi shuǐ	boiled water/boiling water
哦	ó	oh
睡觉	shuì jiào	to go to bed
中文	Zhōng wén	Chinese language
累	lèi	to be tired
不好	bù hǎo	no good
啊	ā	Eh?
出来	chū lái	to come out