Lesson 13 Workbook 257- Chinese sayings
Rewrite these Chinese sayings in characters to match the English translations. (Rewrite the
words in parentheses in Pinyin.)
a. shuD dào zuò dào speak-arrive-do-arrive
= always keep one’s promise
b. bàn lù（chE）jiA half-road(way)-exit-house
= become a monk or a nun half way through life: switch to
a job that one was not trained for.
c. （zì）zhFo（kJ）chC self-look for-bitterness-eat
= look for trouble, bring trouble on oneself
d. （tán）（ hé）róng yì talk-how-easy
= (something is) by no means easy
Focus on structure
- Three ways to say can (Use and Structure note 13.4)
Fill in the blanks with 會 (can: learned ability), 可以 (can: permission) or néng (can: physical
ability).
a. 小張，你 __ tiào wJ，對不對？小謝 gàosù 我你 tiào 得很好。
b. 老師，請問，中文 kFoshì 我 __ xiG PCnyCn 嗎？有兩個 zì 我不 __ xiG。
c. 對不起，我明天有 shì 不 __ lái，我 __ 下個星期一 lái 嗎？
- Easy to do, hard to do (Use and Structure note 13.6)
Each line presents an action followed by the word 容易 or nán. Write a sentence for each
action saying that it is hard or easy to do, as in the example.
Example: finding the airport（nán） → FBijCcháng 很 nán 找。a. studying today’s grammar（容易） →
b. writing that character（nán） →
c. driving his car（nán） →
d. finding the subway station（容易） →
e. buying tickets for this movie (buying this
movie’s tickets)（nán） →