Lesson 12
Dialogue I
(At a restaurant)
Waitress: Please come in. `
Miss Li: How come there are so many people? It looks like there's not a single
seat (table) left.
Mr. Wang: Excuse me, are there any tables left?
Waitress: Yes. That table is vacant.
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Waitress: What would you two like?
Miss Li: Why don't you order, Old Wang.
Mr. Wang: All right. First give us thirty dumplings. Vegetarian ones.
Waitress: Anything else besides the dumplings?
Mr. Wang: A plate of home-style tofu. Don't put any meat in it. We are
vegetarians.
Waitress: There's no meat in our home-style tofu.
Miss Li: Two hot-and-sour soups. Don't put MSG in them.
Waitress: O.K. Two hot-and-sour soups. What would you like to drinl`?
Mr. Wang: I'd like a bottle of beer.
Miss Li: I'm really thirsty. Give me a cola.
Waitress: Sure. Thirty dumplings, a plate of home-style tofu, two hot-and-sour
soups, a bottle of beer, a cola. Anything else?
Miss Li: We don't want anything else. That's enough. Miss, we are both
very hungry. Could you rush the orders?
Waitress: No problem, the dishes will be ready in no time.
Dialogue II
(In the Student Dining Hall)
Student: What's good for dinner tonight?
Worker: Chinese or western food?
Student: Chinese food.
Worker: We have sweet-and-sour fish. It's a little bit sour and sweet, and extremely
delicious. Why don't you buy one?
Student: Good. Do you have beef braised in brown sauce today?
Worker: Beefbraised in brown sauce is sold out. It's hot today. How about a
cucumber salad?
Student: Great. And two liang of rice. How much altogether?
Worker: Ten-fifty for the sweet and sour fish. The cucumber salad is four-fifty.
Two liang of rice, that's fifty cents. Fifteen-fifty altogether.
Student: Here is twenty.
Worker: Four-fifty is your change.
Student: I'm sorry. That's not the correct change. This is five-fifty. You gave me
one dollar too much.
Worker: I'm sorry. Thank you.
Student: See you tomorrow.