“Do you see what I mean?”... “Did I express that clearly?”... “Got it?”
Just like in English, there’s a number of ways to ask if someone has understood what you’ve said in Mandarin Chinese.
The most basic way of doing it is with short phrases like 你懂吗？nǐ dǒng ma? and 你明白吗？nǐ míng bái ma?.
But if you spend some time in a Chinese speaking environment, you’ll notice that native speakers also use many other variants...
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A Visual Summary of the Key Phrases From the Video...
Here's how these phrases were used in the context of the video above:
A: 箱子放在这边，袋子放在那边。xiāng zi fàng zài zhè biān，dài zi fàng zài nà biān.
Put the boxes over here and the bags over there.
不不不，袋子放在这边，箱子放在那边。bù bù bù，dài zi fàng zài zhè biān，xiāng zi fàng zài nà biān.
No, no, no... Put the bags over here and the boxes over there.
Do you understand what I mean?
A: 箱子放在客厅，袋子放在阳台。xiāng zi fàng zài kè tīng，dài zi fàng zài yáng tái.
Put the boxes in the living room and the bags on the balcony.
Did I express that clearly?
A: dài zi fàng zài kè tīng，xiāng zi fàng zài yáng tái. 袋子放在客厅，箱子放在阳台。
Put the bags in the living room and the boxes on the balcony.
Do you know (what I mean)?
A: 不不不，袋子放在洗手间，箱子放在卧室。bù bù bù, dài zi fàng zài xǐ shǒu jiān，xiāng zi fàng zài wò shì.
No, no, no... Put the bags in the bathroom and the boxes in the bedroom.
Do you understand what I said?
A: 箱子放在客厅，袋子放在阳台。xiāng zi fàng zài kè tīng，dài zi fàng zài yáng tái.
Put the boxes in the living room and the bags on the balcony.
Got it?
A: 哦！箱子放在阳台，袋子放在客厅。ó！ xiāng zi fàng zài yáng tái， dài zi fàng zài kè tīng.
Ah! I should put the boxes on the balcony and the bags in the living room.
不对， 箱子放在客厅，袋子放在阳台。bù duì，xiāng zi fàng zài kè tīng，dài zi fàng zài yáng tái.
That's not right... Put the boxes in the living room and the bags on the balcony.
Got it?
A: 箱子放在这儿，袋子放在那儿。xiāng zi fàng zài zhè er， dài zi fàng zài nà er.
Put the boxes here and the bags there.
Do you understand what I mean?
B: 还是不懂。hái shì bù dǒng.
I still don't get it...
A: 算了吧！我自己来！suàn le ba！ wǒ zì jǐ lái！
Forget about it. I'll do it myself.
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