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Apr 16, 2024 · Chinese grammar is logical, structural and simple. Our ultimate guide to Chinese grammar covers 15 core grammar topics and all the relevant subtopics that a Chinese learner needs to know—everything from parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives) to sentence structure, punctuation marks and more.
1. S-V-O. In English, the basic sentence order is subject-verb-object, AKA “S-V-O”. For example: I drink tea. “I” is the subject, “drink” is the verb, and “tea” is the object. The basic sentence order in Chinese is the same, which means you should get used to this structure right away. 我喝茶。. Wǒ hē chá.
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- Subject-Verb-Object
- Time and Place
- No Verb Conjugation Or Tenses
- Plural and Singular
- No Noun-Adjective Gender Agreement
- Asking Questions
- Indicating Possession
- Negation
- Measure Words
At the most basic level, Chinese sentence structure is surprisingly similar to English. As in English, many basic Chinese sentences use a subject-verb or subject-verb-objectstructure. For example: In the following example, the subject is 我 (wǒ, “I”) and the verb is 吃 (chī, “eat”). Click on any Chinese character in the below tables to hear its audio...
In Chinese, the time at which something happened, is happening, or will happen appears at the beginning of the sentence or immediately following the subject. Note that in the first sentence below, the Chinese time word “昨天” (or zuótiān in pinyin) and English “yesterday” both appear at the beginning of the sentence. In the second example, however, t...
One of the most refreshing things about Chinese grammar is the complete lack of verb conjugations. In English, the third-person singular (he/she/it/one) form of verbs tends to be different from the others. Thus, if the subject is “I,” we say “I go,” but if the subject is “he,” then we say “he goes.” This change doesn’t happen in Chinese. The verb 去...
Many English nouns have two forms, singular and plural. For example, you can say you have “one cat,” but if you have two or more, you must add ‘s’ to the end of the noun to indicate plurality. Chinese doesn’t work this way. No matter whether you have one or two or two thousand of something, the noun you use to describe it will remain the same. For ...
Just like in English, Chinese adjectives don’t have to agree in gender or number with the nouns they modify. Speakers of English don’t have to contend with gendered nouns, but they’re common in the European languages that English speakers often learn, like Spanish and French. For example, in French, if a noun is feminine, its corresponding adjectiv...
Asking basic questions in Chinese is also simple. The easiest way to make a question is by adding 吗 (ma) to the end of your sentence. This method can be used to turn a statement into a yes/no question. For example: Statement: Yes/no question: Statement: Yes/no question: For more complex questions, Chinese has question words similar to those found i...
Another thing you’ll quickly need to learn as a beginning Chinese speaker is how to indicate possession. In English, this is normally done by adding an apostrophe ‘s’ to the end of a word, as in, “This is Xiao Wang’scat.” In Chinese, possession is indicated using 的 (de). This immediately follows the person or pronoun to whom something belongs. Its ...
Negation is another important aspect of basic Chinese grammar that is important for beginners to master. Chinese uses two different methods to express negation. The most common involves the use of the character 不 (bù), which roughly translates to “not,” “won’t,” or “not want to.” For example: The character 不 (bù) can be used in most situations. How...
Measure wordsare another important aspect of Chinese grammar that every beginner should be aware of. As an English speaker, you already know how to use measure words (also called “classifiers”), which are relatively common in English. For example, we often talk about a “pair” of pants or a “slice” of cake. “Pair” and “slice” are measure words. A ma...
tā He 打 dǎ hit 人。 rén person 他 打 人。 tā dǎ rén He hit person He hits someone. Chinese can also be considered a topic-prominent language: there is a strong preference for sentences that begin with the topic, usually "given" or "old" information; and end with the comment, or "new" information. Certain modifications of the basic subject–verb–object order are permissible and ...
Feb 4, 2022 · In this article, we explain the adjectives in Chinese and why they are commonly designated as predicative or attributive. They are called this because they have the intrinsic value of the predicate (the verb “to be”), so all adjectives aren’t simply translated with “tall”, “short”, “skinny”, “fat”, but rather with “to be ...
- Is Chinese grammar similar to English?Chinese grammar is fairly easy to learn and often similar to English. Look at modifiers, for example, where the Chinese always use a Subject-Verb-O...
- Is there past tense in Chinese?One of the beauties of learning Chinese is that they don’t have any past tense, which makes it so much easier to learn. Instead of conjugating verb...
- Is Chinese harder than Japanese?Some people claim that Japanese is harder than Chinese and vice versa. Generally speaking, the grammar is easier in Chinese. Besides, the fact that...
- How long does it take to learn Chinese fluently?Hard to say as it’s a highly individual question. In general, be prepared to study Chinese daily for at least 2-3 years before you become fluent.
- Can Japanese people read the Chinese language?Yes, the Japanese have two different alphabets called Hiragana and Katakana. Besides, they also have a writing system called Kanji which includes C...
- How many characters do you need to know to be fluent in Chinese?In general, Chinese people need to learn 1,500 – 2,000 characters to be considered fluent. However, this doesn’t mean that you only have to learn 1...
- Is there a Chinese alphabet?No, there’s no alphabet in Chinese, like in most other languages. Yet, they do have the pinyin system that is a system of symbols showing phonetic...
- Is Pinyin and Mandarin the same?Pinyin is an alphabet and a romanization of Chinese characters. In short, the pinyin system helps you understand how Chinese characters are pronoun...
Rule #2: Words do not change. Unlike in European languages, words in Chinese do not change. They have a fixed form that is the same no matter what they're used for or where the appear in a sentence. In Chinese, you don't conjugate verbs and you don't make adjectives agree.
Chinese Grammar with Rules and Interactive Exercises Learn and practice Chinese grammar online with MandarinBean. We offer hundreds of interactive exercises suitable for beginners to advanced Chinese learners, allowing you to reinforce your knowledge and master the Chinese language. You will receive feedback for every question! Through our explanations, we aim to demystify Chinese grammar. […]
