Listen to lesson:
Adam: This lesson is for those working in Taiwan or China in an office type environment. Some of these words may be advanced but if used in the right context, might still be useful to get your message across.
Unless you’re looking to become fluent, you probably don’t need to learn all these words, so just pick the ones that you think would be useful for your situation.
Let’s start with the word for office.
Kirin: 办公室.
Adam: Office
Kirin: 办公室.
Adam: So in an office type environment, you usually have a few different people working there. First, there might be a boss, who is the
Kirin: 老板.
Adam: Notice this word also has the character 老 for old in it, similar to 老师 which we learned in an earlier lesson means “teacher.”
Kirin: 老板.
Adam: The employees who work for the boss are the
Kirin: 员工
Adam: Employees
Kirin: 员工
Adam: If you are an employee at an office, your coworkers are your
Kirin: 同事
Adam: Coworkers
Your department might have a manager, who is a
Kirin: 经理
Adam: Manager
Kirin: 经理
Adam: Your boss might have a secretary who is a
Kirin: 秘书
Adam: Secretary
Kirin: 秘书
Adam: Now your actual job or work is called
Kirin: 工作
Adam: Work
Kirin: 工作
Adam: So if someone wanted to know what you do, they might ask
Kirin: 你的工作是工作什么
Adam: So literally that’s Your job is what. What’s your job?
Kirin: 你的工作是工作什么
Adam: Now lets say you wanted a job, you’d need to apply for one first. To apply is
Kirin: 申请
Adam: To apply
Kirin: 申请
Adam: So to apply for a job would be
Kirin: 申请工作
Adam: When applying for a job, they usually need to see your resume or CV, which is your
Kirin: 履历表
Adam: Resume or CV
Kirin: 履历表
Adam: If they like what they see, they might call you for an interview or a
Kirin: 面试
Adam: Interview
When meeting an interviewer, they usually give you their business card with both hands. Make sure you receive the card with both hands too.
Business card.
Kirin: 名片
Adam: Once you get the job, you’d have to agree on some salary or
Kirin: 薪水
Adam: Salary
Kirin: 薪水
Adam: Note that from some of your salary, you’ll need to pay some tax which is
Kirin: 税
Adam: Tax
Kirin: 税
Adam: After starting the job, you’d have to go through a training process.
Kirin: 训练
Adam: Training
Kirin: 训练
Adam: Work culture in Asia can be pretty demanding, frequently requiring overtime
Kirin: 加班
Adam: Overtime
Kirin: 加班
Adam: This in turn may give you lots of stress
Kirin: 压力
Adam: Stress
Kirin: 压力
Adam: Depending on your type of work, you may have to have a lot of meetings
Kirin: 开会
Adam: To have a meeting
Kirin: 开会
Adam: During the meeting, you may have various topics to discuss
Kirin: 讨论
Adam: Discuss
Kirin: 讨论
Adam: Now perhaps you were interested in doing business for yourself
Kirin: 做生意
Adam: To do business
Kirin: 做生意
Adam: The purpose of business of course is to make money
Kirin: 赚钱
Adam: Make money
One industry that is popular in Asia is the trade industry
Kirin: 贸易
Adam: Trade
Kirin: 贸易
Adam: This involves importing some products
Kirin: 进口
Adam: Importing
Kirin: 进口
Adam: And exporting other products
Kirin: 出口
Adam: Exporting
Kirin: 出口
Adam: How well a company does will depend on its revenue
Kirin: 收入
Adam: Revenue
Kirin: 收入
Adam: And expenses
Kirin: 费用
Adam: Expenses
Kirin: 费用
Adam: It might also depend on the economy
Kirin: 经济
Adam: Economy
Kirin: 经济
Adam: And support from the government
Kirin: 政府
Adam: Government
Kirin: 政府
Adam: This brings us to the end of our Chinese Basics course. I hope you found the material useful to you, to just give you a taste of what Chinese is all about. If you liked what you learned and would like to take the next step towards becoming fluent or functionally fluent, I recommend you sign up for a premium subscription on our site chinesetrack.com The premium course starts again from lesson 1, so there will be some review, but it will also fill in a lot of gaps that were skipped in the Chinese Basics course, which will take you a long ways towards becoming functionally fluent in the language, including a lot more resources for learning to read, type and even write characters, if that interests you. So check that out on our site chinesetrack.com If you have any questions about that course or any material on the site, feel free to use the contact us form on the site to get in touch. Thank you.