Level 2 · Lesson 6

看电视，听音乐
Watching TV, listening to music

我看电视，你听音乐。

看 belongs to the eyes and 听 to the ears — and two clauses need only a comma between them.

听 · Listen

对话
 安娜 —  李明，你看什么？ 
Li Ming, what are you watching?  
 李明 —  我看电视。你呢？ 
I'm watching TV. And you?  
 安娜 —  我不看电视，我听音乐。 
I don't watch TV — I listen to music.  
 李明 —  你听什么音乐？ 
What music do you listen to?  
 安娜 —  我听中国音乐。 
I listen to Chinese music.  
 李明 —  我姐姐也听中国音乐，也看中国电影。 
My older sister listens to Chinese music too, and watches Chinese films.  
 安娜 —  中国电影难吗？ 
Are Chinese films hard?  
 李明 —  不难。你看电影，我看电视！ 
Not hard. You watch films, I'll watch TV!  

讲解 · Explanation

我看电视。我看电影。我听音乐。

Chinese sorts these verbs by the sense organ, not by the English word. 看 kàn is everything the eyes do — watch, look at, read. 听 tīng is everything the ears do — listen to, hear. So a screen is always 看电视, 看电影, and a sound is always 听音乐. Say 听电视 only if you truly mean listening to it in the next room; for watching it, that sentence is wrong.

电视、电影、音乐

电 diàn is 'electric', and it opens both screen words: 电视 is electric-vision, 电影 is electric-shadow — a lovely name for cinema. 音乐 is 音 'sound' plus 乐. Watch that second character: here it reads yuè, not lè. 音乐 yīnyuè is one of the words you must simply learn by its reading.

你看电影，我看电视。

Two short sentences can sit side by side with nothing but a comma. Chinese does not need a word for 'and' between clauses — 和 hé, which you met joining 弟弟和妹妹, joins nouns only and can never link two verbs like this. If you want to add 'also', put 也 yě in front of the second verb: 我看电视，也听音乐.

生词 · Vocabulary

词	Meaning	注 · Note
看	to watch, look at, read	the eye verb
听	to listen, hear	the ear verb
电视	television	看电视, never 听电视
音乐	music	乐 reads yuè here, not lè
电影	film, movie	literally electric shadow

练习 · Practice

我______音乐。 Which verb goes with 音乐?

安娜______电影。 Anna is at the cinema. Which verb?

我姐姐不看电视，她______音乐。 My older sister doesn't watch TV; she listens to music.

排一排。 Arrange the words: 'I don't watch TV.'

看、听、电视、音乐、电影 Match each word to its meaning.

用一用 · Use it

我看……，我听……。

Say aloud what you watch and what you listen to, and put both in one breath with a comma between them: 我看电视，我听音乐。 Then say what someone else does — 我哥哥看电影，我妈妈听音乐 — and finish with a 吗 question for a friend: 你看中国电影吗？