Mandarin Car Rental: Hire Out the Cars

How to play: you are behind the service desk of a self-drive hire office in Vietnam, and the whole week comes to you across that counter. Somebody walks in off the street and asks what is free; somebody else booked a car yesterday and wants a bigger one; a third wants to know what it costs a day, whether there is insurance, when the car has to be back and where in the yard it is standing. Some of them take the deal, pay and drive out through a roller door — stopping first to point at a scratch that was there before they touched it. Some of them do not: too dear, nothing they liked, the car wanted back too early, and out they go. And then the cars start coming home, with half a tank in them, a dent in a door and red dust to the handles, and you have to say the word for a surcharge to somebody’s face. Three things can be wanted of you. Sometimes you have to say what they said, in English, so the four options are English. Sometimes you have to answer them, so the four options are Mandarin. And sometimes it is YOU who has to ask — what kind of car, how many days, would you like an upgrade, do you want insurance — so the prompt is your own intent in English and the four options are Mandarin questions, three of which ask something else entirely. Every cue also carries the moment it belongs to, and the showroom draws that moment: a customer arriving really walks in through the street door, a car being taken really goes out through a shutter, and a returned car really stands on the apron while the two of you walk round it. What the week is teaching underneath all of it is the measure word and the four ways Chinese asks a question. 一辆车 and not 一车; 有没有 to ask and 还有 to ask whether any are LEFT; 几 for a small count and 多少 for a price; and 太贵了, where the 太 opens the complaint and the 了 has to close it. On top of that sits 万, the unit English does not have, which is where a hire price of twelve thousand becomes 一万二. Every line is spoken aloud, with the pronunciation guide and the English written underneath at the easier difficulties. A wrong pick shows what would have worked, teaches why, and the question comes round again later, so a day always ends well however it goes. Six days make the game: what is free, the bookings, the money, taking the car, bringing it back and the small print — the full-tank policy, the refuelling fee, the insurance, an accident, and the late return. There is no losing and no time limit; the clock only remembers how long the day took, and the keys at the top how many you handled right first time.

Level and Difficulty are two different rows. The Level row is where on the Lesson 7 scale the next day sits — the same levels the course wall is divided into, numbered the same way. Each level plays the day the lesson has reached: the lesson's early levels open the desk's gentler queues, and from level five the week holds at its fullest while the lesson keeps going. The three difficulties are how much of each line is written down: Beginner puts the pinyin and the English under every sentence, Intermediate the pinyin alone, Advanced the characters by themselves. The difficulty is a free choice at every level. It is the seventh lesson of the Mandarin course.