Cynthia and I are at the train station in Hangzhou, waiting for the overnight train to Nanchang, scheduled to leave at 7:41pm. We are in the Soft Sleeper Waiting Room. We haven’t had dinner yet and the options here in the waiting room include candy, biscuits and fruit juice. So I was curious as to whether we would be able to order dinner on the train.
So I went up to the woman who took punched our tickets, showed mine and asked,
“Qing wen, zhege huo che, yao buyao, wan fan?”
(Lit. Please may I ask, this train, is there or not, dinner?)
[Probably not grammatically correct, but it contains the main ideas)
And she replied, “Yao de” (It is)
Not sure what the “de” means, but the “Yao” was good enough for me. We’ll expect to have dinner on the train.
So I just wanted to say, thank you, Ms. Pamela Lin, our Chinese instructor and Josette Hendrix who hooked us up with her.
Lin Laoshi, you just saved us from a dinner of candy and biscuits!
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
she probably said 有的, you3de0, rather than 要的, yao4de0. You3 is the verb to have, while yao4 is the verb to want, or need. The difference is in the tone and the vowel.
的 de0 is a partical that indicates possession, and alot of related things. In this case, it is indicating something like – food belongs to the class of things that we have. It sounds strange, but think about explaining to a Chinese person why someone would say "It is" to indicate that there is food available.
有的 you3de0 is a good response anytime you are trying to say that something is available, or you have something.
You wouldn't want to say 要的 yao4de0 much, if ever. I guess it would mean that what is being discussed is wanted…but I've never heard anyone say it.
Your question was phrased pretty good – no complaints on the grammer (except the super-technical one about measure words, which I won't even menotion, as using "ge" is fine). Just change your yaobuyao to youmeiyou (有没有，不bu4 is the correct way to negate the verb yao4, to want, but for the verb you3, to have, the correct negation is 没mei2 – its also the correct way to negate past tense, in all other circumstances use bu4).
Otherwise, you're asking whether the train wants dinner – and trains aren't known for being particularly gluttonous.
Otherwise, congratulations on the courage to try your language skills! The hardest thing in learning is to be willing to talk, make mistakes. After that, you'll only get better and better! 加油 jia1you2 (literally "add oil", a common way to cheer someone on).