Hello Internet friends! Today I would like to teach you some Chinese and introduce you to a personal all-time favorite Chinese pop song named 女孩与四重奏 (nǚ hái yǔ sì chóng zòu ), which literally means A Girl and A String Quartet. It is a fairly old song and I’ve known it since I was still a moody rebellious teenager.
The song is only accompanied by a string quartet and I absolutely love this type of music. I am a violinist so you could imagine my excitement when I found this pop song! This will be my first time writing blog posts teaching people Chinese like this so if you have any feedback, please leave a comment below 🙂First, let’s take a listen to the song on youtube! The video has lyrics and pinyin so it should be pretty easy to follow. And when you come back here, I will explain the lyrics line by line and expand on anything that I think might interest a Chinese learner.
Alright, now we’re back! Before we jump into the lyrics, let’s take a look at the title of this song first – A Girl and A String Quartet
nǚhái yǔ sì chóng zòu
女孩与四重奏
女孩(nǚhái) means girl. You could say 一个女孩(yí gè nǚ hái) to mean a girl. Different ways of saying girl are: 女生(nǚ shēng),女孩子(nǚ hái zi).
Now let’s jump to the lyrics.
站得太久了站得腿也麻了(zhàn de tài jiǚ le zhàn de tuǐ ye má le)
(I) have been standing for too long and my legs feel numb
哭得太久了哭得眼睛肿了(kū de tài jǐu le kū de yǎn jīng zhǒng le)
(I) have been crying for too long and my eyes are now swollen
我不知道为什么一切会变成这样(wǒ bù zhī dào wèi shéng me yí qìe huì biàn chéng zhè yàng)
I don’t know why everything would turn out like this
连晴朗的天空也突然地下起雨来了(lián qíng lǎng de tiān kōng yě tū rán de xià qǐ yǔ lái le)
The sky was even clear before, now all of a sudden it starts to rain.
我等得太久了等得心也灰了(wǒ děng de tài jǐu le děng de xīn yě huī le)
I have been waiting too long and now my heart has turned grey.
我想得太久了想得人也累了(wǒ xiǎng de tài jiǔ le xiǎng de rén yě lèi le)
I have been thinking for too long and now my person feels tired.
我不相信这一次你真的不会来了(wǒ bù xiāng xìn zhè yí cì nǐ zhēn de bú huì lái le)
I don’t believe that this time you really won’t show up
连一封信一句话一个字你也没留下(lián yì fēng xìn yí jù huà yí gè zì nǐ yě méi liú xià)
Not even a single letter, a single sentence, a single word was left.
站在街角, 发现自己很无聊(zhàn zài jiē jiǎo, fā xiàn zì jǐ hěn wú liáo)
Standing at the street corner, (I) found myself to be very bored
我怎么哭著叫著像个孩子在胡闹(wǒ zěn me kū zhe jiào zhe xiàng gè hái zi zài hú nào)
Why am I crying and screaming like a kid throwing a fit
我该微笑, 还要有一点骄傲(wǒ gāi wēi xiào, hái yào yǒu yì xiē jiāo ào)
I should smile, and carry some pride as well
就算是没了你了我也不能让人笑(jìu suàn shì méi le nǐ le wǒ yě bù néng ràng réng xiào)
Even if I’m without you, I cannot let people laugh at me
就算是没了你了我还可以再寻找(jìu suàn shì méi le nǐ le wǒ hái kě yǐ zài xún zhǎo)
Even if I’m without you, I can still find (another guy).
If you find that you really want to improve your Chinese pronunciation, or simply would like to have an immersive Chinese experience, I highly recommend using the Pimsleur program.
Click on the banner image below to sign up for a free trial and you can get two audible books for free. If you spend those two free credits on one of the pimsleur programs, each of them is worth $23+, so you’re getting almost $50 for free! Or click on this link: https://amzn.to/2ONwAmH.
Once you sign up, you can try the first 10 lessons, or you can brower and choose the more advanced lessons:
Once again, thanks for reading this blog post. If you have any questions about the song, or the lyrics, or me, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or message me directly. Hope you learned something useful, and let me know if you find this helpful at all so that I’ll know whether or not to keep posting posts like this.
Happy learning!
