Lesson 19 - Míngtiān jiàn! - See you tomorrow!

你 们 好!
Nimen hao!

In this lesson, we will learn to make an appointment for today or tomorrow.

Dialog

你 有 空 吗?
Nǐ yǒu kòng ma?
Do you have time (to meet)?

我 明 天 晚 上 有 空.
Wǒ míngtiān wǎnshàng yǒu kòng.
I have time tomorrow evening.

明 天 见!
Míngtiān jiàn!
See you tomorrow!

明 天 见!
Míngtiān jiàn!
See you tomorrow!

Vocabulary

zuótiān 昨 天 = yesterday (n.)
jīntiān 今 天 = today (n.)
míngtiān 明 天 = tomorrow (n.)
zǎoshàng 早 上 = morning (n.)
báitiān 白 天 = daytime (n.)
wǎnshàng 晚 上 = evening (n.)
kòng 空 = time, “empty” (n.)

In our previous lesson, we learned to ask “do you have time?”, Nǐ yǒu kòng ma? Literally speaking, kòng means “empty,” but in this context is stands for “time.” The question translates into “do you have time to do something (together)?”

Please pay attention to word order in the answer Wǒ míngtiān wǎnshàng yǒu kòng, “I-tomorrow-evening-have-time.” In a direct sentence, the order of words is subject+verb+object. All adverbs indicating time and place are placed between the subject and the verb, and in a Chinese manner we start from bigger units and proceed toward smaller ones, i.e. tomorrow (whole day) + evening (a specific period in a day).

In case you wish to agree on a specific moment of time, it would be added after the word “evening” (tomorrow + evening + six o'clock). And furthermore, if you fix a specific location where to meet your friend, it would come after the temporal element in the sentence (tomorrow + evening + six o'clock + in front of the movie theater) .

Míngtiān jiàn!, "see you tomorrow" is a very useful expression to learn. Jiàn is the verb “to see.” You can use the same pattern to say “see you in the evening,” wǎnshàng jiàn, “see you in the morning,” zǎoshàng jiàn, etc.

More definitions of time:

before noon - shàngwǔ 上 午
afternoon - xiàwǔ 下 午
noontime - zhōngwǔ 中 午
midnight - bàn yè 半 夜
(at) night - yè lǐ 夜 里

The prepositions shàng and xià are more often seen as having the meaning “up” and “down.” When speaking about definitions of time, shàng carries the meaning of “previous”, and xià stands for “the latter, next.” By using these prepositions, we can easily express such time periods as “last week” shàng zhōu and “next week,” xià zhōu. (re: lesson no. 13)

Wǔ in itself has the meaning of “noontime,” but if we wish to emphasize “noon at 12 o'clock” we can use the word zhōngwǔ. Zhōng = middle.

Bàn stands for "half," yè is "night," thus bànyè means midnight. Lǐ means literally “inside, in.” Yè lǐ can then be translated as "at night."