Lesson 20 Part I - Wǒmen chūqu wán! – Let's go out to have fun!

你 们 好!
Nimen hao.

In this lesson, we will go see a movie and learn some other Chinese vocabulary related to leisure time activities.

Dialog

我 们 出 去 玩, 好 吗?
Wǒmen chūqu wán, hǎo ma?
Shall we go out to have some fun?

好 吧, 去 哪?
Hǎo ba, qù nǎr?
Fine with me, where shall we go?

我 们 去 看 电 影!
Wǒmen qù kān diànyǐng!
Let's go to see a movie!

太 好 了!
Tài hǎo le!
Great!

走 吧!
Zǒu ba!
Well let's go then!

好!
Hǎo!
All right!

Vocabulary

chūqu 出 去 = to go out (verb)
wán 玩 = have fun, “play” (verb)
hǎo ba 好 吧 = yes, alright
ba 吧 = at the end of a sentence indicates a suggestion or request, or approval
kàn 看 = to watch (verb)
diànyǐng 电 影 = a movie (noun)
Tài hǎo le! 太 好 了! = super good, great!

When Chinese people go out to have fun they actually “go out to play.” The verb for having fun is the same than when talking about little children “playing”, wán. Wán is how the word is spelled in the dictionary, but in practice people add an er at the end of it, wán'r (er-endings are especially common in Beijing dialect).

Wǒmen chūqu wán, hǎo ma?

This sentence is turned into a type of proposal by adding hǎo ma?, “ok?” at the end. As you already know, hǎo is “good”, and ma is an interrogative word. You can answer this question simply by saying hǎo, “yes”, or for example hǎo ba, which translates into “well, ok” or “fine with me.”

We have already learned the question “where shall we go?”, in Chinese qù nǎr? Qù is the verb “to go” and the interrogative word “where to” is nǎr. The interrogative word is placed after the verb, at the end of the sentence. In this type of question no subject (we) is needed, just ask “go where?”