Xiaoyu comes to help Lele with his homework. The maths problem that has stopped him takes one reading.
Auntie Wang
小雨，麻烦你了。他的数学我真的不会。
Xiǎoyǔ, máfan nǐ le. Tā de shùxué wǒ zhēn de bù huì.
Xiaoyu, thank you for coming. His maths is quite beyond me.
Xiaoyu
没关系。乐乐，先把今天的作业拿出来。
Méi guānxi. Lèle, xiān bǎ jīntiān de zuòyè ná chūlái.
Not at all. Lele, start by getting today's homework out.
Lele
一共三样：语文、数学、英语。
Yīgòng sān yàng : yǔwén, shùxué, yīngyǔ.
Three subjects in all: Chinese, maths and English.
Xiaoyu
我们先做数学。你觉得哪一题最难？
Wǒmen xiān zuò shùxué. Nǐ juéde nǎ yī tí zuì nán ?
Let us do the maths first. Which question looks hardest to you?
Lele
最后一题。我看了十分钟，一点儿也想不出来。
Zuìhòu yī tí. Wǒ kàn le shí fēnzhōng, yīdiǎnr yě xiǎng bù chūlái.
The last one. I looked at it for ten minutes and could not come up with anything at all.
Xiaoyu
那你把题目读一遍给我听。
Nà nǐ bǎ tí mù dú yī biàn gěi wǒ tīng.
Then read the question out loud to me.
Lele
一辆车每小时走六十公里，两个半小时走多少公里？
Yī liàng chē měi xiǎoshí zǒu liùshí gōnglǐ, liǎng gè bàn xiǎoshí zǒu duōshao gōnglǐ ?
A car travels sixty kilometres an hour; how far does it go in two and a half hours?
Xiaoyu
读完了你就知道了吧？一小时六十，两个半小时呢？
Dú wán le nǐ jiù zhīdào le ba ? Yī xiǎoshí liùshí, liǎng gè bàn xiǎoshí ne ?
Once you have read it you know, do you not? Sixty in an hour, so in two and a half hours?
Lele
一百五十。原来这么简单。
Yībǎi wǔshí. Yuánlái zhème jiǎndān.
A hundred and fifty. So it was simple after all.
Xiaoyu
你不是不会，是没有认真读题。
Nǐ bùshì bù huì, shì méiyǒu rènzhēn dú tí.
It is not that you cannot do it, it is that you did not read the question properly.
Auntie Wang
他就是这样，一拿起笔就着急。
Tā jiùshì zhèyàng, yī ná qǐ bǐ jiù zháojí.
He is always like that, the moment he picks up a pen he gets agitated.
Lele
那英语也要今天做完吗？
Nà yīngyǔ yě yào jīntiān zuò wán ma ?
Does the English have to be finished today as well?
Xiaoyu
做完英语就可以休息。剩下的明天早上再检查。
Zuò wán yīngyǔ jiù kěyǐ xiūxi. Shèngxià de míngtiān zǎoshang zài jiǎnchá.
Finish the English and then you can rest. We will check the rest tomorrow morning.
一点儿也想不出来: he can come up with absolutely nothing. The mould 一点儿 + 也 (or 都) + negative strengthens like English "not at all", but it goes before the verb and not after. With a countable noun you use 一 + measure word + 都不, seen in lesson 10; with an indefinite quantity it is 一点儿也不.
原来这么简单 does not say "originally it was simple" but "ah, so it was simple after all". 原来 marks a discovery that corrects what you believed, and goes at the head of the sentence it illuminates. The same word does mean "originally" when it bears on a time (原来的房子, the flat we had before), and nothing tells them apart but the position.
你不是不会，是没有认真读题: the structure sets two explanations of the same failure against each other. It is much used to put a judgement right without disputing what happened, which makes it as useful in teaching as at work. The second part can be introduced by 而是, which is more written.
