Travel and Tourist Transactions
Buying a ticket, asking a price, finding the station. Plus the rule with no English equivalent: in Chinese you cannot count anything without a measure word.
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At the ticket window 🎫
A tourist transaction is a short exchange with a stranger: you name what you want, you ask what it costs, and you find out where to go. Every word below is shown three ways: the **characters**, the **pinyin** with its tone marks in brackets, and the **English**. The grammar in this module is the one thing English speakers always get wrong when they start counting things in Chinese.
Key words 🗂️
The nouns a traveller needs:
Match each word to its meaning
- 票 (piào)
- 车站 (chēzhàn)
- 房间 (fángjiān)
- 地图 (dìtú)
- ticket
- station
- room
- map
You cannot count without one 🔢
English does this occasionally: you do not say two breads, you say two **slices** of bread. Chinese does it **every time**. A number can never sit directly in front of a noun. • 一**张**票 (yī zhāng piào) one ticket. 张 is for flat things. • 一**张**地图 (yī zhāng dìtú) one map, also flat. • 一**个**房间 (yī gè fángjiān) one room. 个 is the general one, used when nothing better fits. • 一**把**钥匙 (yī bǎ yàoshi) one key. 把 is for things you hold by a handle. **And one more thing that costs marks: use 两 (liǎng), not 二 (èr), before a measure word.** Two tickets is 两张票, never 二张票.
How do you say two tickets? 2️⃣
You are at the window and you want two tickets. Which is right?
- 两张票 (liǎng zhāng piào)
- 二张票 (èr zhāng piào)
- 两票 (liǎng piào)
- 两个票 (liǎng gè piào)
Which are correct? ✅
Select the TWO phrases that are written correctly.
- 一张地图 (yī zhāng dìtú)
- 一个房间 (yī gè fángjiān)
- 一地图 (yī dìtú)
- 二个房间 (èr gè fángjiān)
Making the request 💬
Four expressions do most of the work in a transaction:
Complete the exchange 📝
To open politely you say _____. To say you want two tickets you say _____ 两张票. To ask the price you say _____. And to ask where the station is you use _____.
Match each expression to when you would use it
- 请问 (qǐngwèn)
- 多少钱 (duōshao qián)
- 在哪里 (zài nǎlǐ)
- 我要 (wǒ yào)
- Opening politely before you ask a stranger anything
- Finding out what something costs
- Finding out where a place is
- Saying what you would like to buy
在车站 🧭
An interactive activity.
The summary 🖊️
The Chinese for a ticket is _____ and for a station is _____. To ask a price you say _____. A number can never sit straight in front of a noun: you need a _____ in between, and before one you must use _____, not 二.
Your turn ✍️
An interactive activity.