Elementary | Hospitality Series 7: Hotel Room Cleaning

0:00You are sure I don't win. Chinese, my Chinese part. Chinese part, that's the way to learn Chinese. Chinese, my Chinese part. Chinese part, that's the way to learn Chinese. Hey guys, welcome to Chinese Pot. You're listening to an elementary lesson. My name's Dilu. Hey guys, I'm John. So today we're in the weird and wonderful world of hotel rooms. And we're in New York, Manhattan. Right, because this is the hospitality series. So the situation is you have a Chinese person visiting New York. They're staying in a hotel room in New York. And they expect their service to be in Chinese. And because Americans are so awesome at Chinese, this is not a problem. And today, our lesson is all about cleaning the room. Right, and asking the room to be clean. So can we have the word for clean before we get into the dialogue?

1:01Yes, sure. That is, da-sau. Da-sau. Okay, and the tones are. Two-thirds tones. Okay, da-sau. So we're going to hear that word a couple times in the dialogue. And we're going to hear the dialogue three times. Okay, here we go. Duy Hua, D-E-B-E Hej, có gì peut aii bau ninh? Hej, có gì peut aii bau ninh? Hi, hi. Hi. Hi, hi. So, can you help me clean the room? Okay, so, quay 2020. Yes. Do you want to clean now? Yes. D-2-B-E Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. 您现在要打扫吗? 对 第三遍 喂? 有什么可以帮您?

2:02你好,麻烦你帮我打扫房间 好的,是1202吗? 是,您现在要打扫吗? 对 现在要打扫吗? 喂? 有什么可以帮您? 喂? 有什么可以帮您? 喂? 有什么可以帮您? 你好,麻烦您帮我打扫房间 喂? 有什么可以帮您? 你好,麻烦您帮我打扫房间 喂? 可能我可以帮您 喂? 可能我可以帮您 喂? 可能我可以帮您 喂? 可能我可以帮您 你好,麻烦您帮我打扫房间 好的,是1202吗?

3:02喂? 有什么可以帮您? 好的,是1202吗? 好,是1202吗? 好的,是1202吗? Yes. It is. Would you like us to clean it right now? Would you like us to clean it right now? That's right. Okay, so pretty straightforward asking someone to clean the room now. So we start off from a phone call. Right, and we hear the hotel staff answer the phone and they use a pretty standard question, right? Right. Okay, so literally, is there something can help you?

4:02And you'll notice that the word for you is the polite form, which is... Okay, and this phrase is definitely something you're going to hear at something that's useful. If you are working in a hotel or some other service industry where you have some Chinese people as guests... That's right. So let's hear that a few more times. Alright, you're going to want to practice that before you can use it. And then the answer is... Okay, so let's break it down. The first part is... ...trouble you, right? Right. So,麻煩, the tones are second and neutral. So to trouble someone, in this case, trouble you. 麻煩你. And then you're asking someone to do something for you.

5:04And in Chinese, the way to say, for me, it looks like help me, right? Oh, right. 幫我. Okay, first tone, third tone. So trouble you, help me, and then... And then we hear the keyword,打少. Okay, it's a clean. And that's two-third tones. Maybe some of our parties know this 少 means to sweep. But that's more like a general word for cleaning. So to clean the whole room, not just sweep the floor. Right, including making the bed, cleaning the table, empty the garbage cans. Okay, cleaning the windows, all that stuff. Right. It's all 打少. Okay, but in this case, we have clean something, right? 打少,房間,房間. So that's just the room, the hotel room. Right, the tones are second and first. 房間,打少,房間.

6:07Okay, so again, the whole sentence is, trouble you, help me clean the room. Now, do we need all these? Are these all necessary? It sounds pretty polite when you're like, may I trouble you? And could you do that for me? Of course, you can say like, help me clean the room. But it sounds pretty rude. Okay, so Maffani in the beginning adds more politeness. Now, what if I said, Maffani,打少房間, can I say that? This is pretty clear. With the context here, we wouldn't think that I want you to clean my neighbors' room, right? Right, okay. But there's one thing that I want to point out is, in Chinese, this Maffani is a statement. However, if you say that in English, it's always in a question. Oh, yeah, that's true. We always say, could I trouble you to do something? And it's a question. But in Chinese, it's not a question. I'm troubling you. Yeah, I'm doing that. I'm telling you. This is what I need you to do.

7:07But in Chinese, we understand it as a request, although it's not a question. I see. Okay, but one other question. Since this is a very important sentence in this dialogue, we have 帮我打少房间, right? Right. Clean the room for me. Can I say,打少房间帮我? No, you have to put 帮我 before the verb. Okay, you have to put 麻烦你 before everything. Right. So, it turns out to be,麻烦你帮我打少房间. All right, I think we're ready for a new sentence. A question from the hotel staff. So,现在, 2 4th tones, that means now, right? Right. So, right now, you want to clean? Right now, you want us to clean. Yeah, so that's interesting. In Chinese, they can drop who's doing it because it's understood based on the context. Yes. If there were no context, it might mean, do you want to clean right now, right?

8:09But here, it's obvious, do you want us to clean your room now? Yeah, so you really need to pay attention to the context. Otherwise, you know, a sentence can mean many different things. When you cut down the sentence to its most basic elements, you can just ask. 您现在要打少吗? Yeah, and I think we translate that in English as, would you like us to clean it right now? Exactly. Alright, let's listen to the dialogue three more times. Greetings, everyone, and welcome to... Chinese Pod Trivia! Our first question is, how long will it take you to become an intermediate Chinese speaker using the Chinese Pod app? Is it A, the rest of your life, B, you should already be an intermediate speaker, C, 3 months, or D, Chinese Pod has an app? You should already be an... That is incorrect. The correct answer is C, 3 months.

9:10That's right, head over to ChinesePod.com now to register for your access to over 4,000 lessons. Get the Chinese Pod app now on Google Play or the app. The first question is... What can you do for you? Hello, can you help me to get the room? Okay, is it 1202? Yes, you are going to get the room now? Yes. The second question is... Hello, can you help me to get the room? Okay, is it 1202? Yes, you are going to get the room now? Yes. The third question is... Hello, can you help me to get the room? Hello, can you help me to get the room? Yes, you are going to get the room now? Yes. Hello, can you help me to get the room?

10:12Okay, is it 1202? Yes, you are going to get the room now? Yes. So, Dilo, I have a question for you. What is it? I have often heard that Chinese think foreigners are too polite when they speak Chinese. One of the reasons is they always use Qing. It's like, please, please, that Qing, Qing, everything is Qing. And Chinese people don't use it that much, right? Because the usage for the word Qing and the word police in English are totally different. You can add police into basically all the questions. But in Chinese, you can't really do that. Okay, but what I'm getting at is if you're staying at a hotel and you're talking to the receptionist whose job is to help you, it seems kind of overly polite to say to them, can I trouble you to do something when they're just waiting for you to call them, right? So it's almost like the opposite where the Chinese seem overly polite to me anyway. Well, actually, this Ma Fan Yi is not what you think.

11:16It's more like a formula. Like, you add that thing before any requests, just to, you know, try to show some respect. So it's a little more casual than could I trouble you to do something in English? It's much more casual. Okay. So like, sometimes when I was in a taxi, I'm like, Shifu Ma Fan Yi, to some places. And some of the, my foreign friends, they think like, do you have to be that polite to a taxi driver? Because they're translating it as, could I trouble you to do this? And it seems a little over the top. Yeah, but actually, you can just feel free to use that word to, you know, like hotel receptionists and taxi drivers and like in the restaurant. And also a boss to employees. Is that okay? Yeah, totally. It's just polite, right? Yes, just polite. So just feel free to use that word. Okay, and Chinese people will appreciate it. They'll smile because you're not just dropping Qing all over the place who are actually doing things the Chinese way, right?

12:17Do do do. All right, so that's all we have for today. We'll see you on ChinesePod.com. That's it. As usual, ChinesePod provides an extensive selection of learning materials for this lesson on its website, www.ChinesePod.com. You can access this lesson directly with the lesson number 1-8-8-9. So just go to www.ChinesePod.com slash 1-8-8-9. And you will find a transcript for vocabulary and much more. The link again, www.ChinesePod.com. www.ChinesePod.com slash 1-8-8-9.