A whole hovercraft full of questions, part 1: yidianr and yidianr dianr
OK, this is actually many questions. I'm coming to the end of my month of learning, and coming to the end of Mandarin 1+2. Next week, I go to Beijing (xia ge xingqi wo qu Beijing, or it would be if I could find the tone marks on a regular keyboard, rather than the special facilities in the Fluenz software :)
I'm rather hoping Sonia or Yi might find a moment to fill in some blanks too, but I'll take any and all input...
here goes with number one:
There seem to be several variation of dianr and yidianr. One of them is "you dianr", which comes up in the material as "you dianr xiao" and is suggested as being how I'd say "this is a little bit small", but in at least one situation, there is an example given where the you preceding dianr is really the verb, to have. So, I'm a little unsure about some of these constructions. If someone has a nutshell statement about the permutations, I'd be pleased to have a little extra guidance.
On this topic, I'm thinking I'd like to indicate to the locals that "wo shuo yidiar Hanyu" and also that I understand rather less (because they'll be speaking too darn fast and with unfamiliar accents :) My inclination is to say "wo xxxx yidianr dianr Hanyu" but will that get the point over that my ability to listen is more restricted than my ability to speak? In other words, is "yidianr dianr X" an even smaller amount of X than implied by "yidianr X"?