And to ask How much does it cost? or How much is it? in Chinese, you can ask subject + . You also dont drink tea / You dont drink tea, either. Another use of is to be placed at the end of a sentence to show there is a new situation or a new situation is about to come. Simple! (The listener has already asked once.
A few examples are a plate of spaghetti, a bowl of rice, a bottle of water, a pack of dogs, etc. You only need to replace the part you want to question about with a question word. Placing before verbs, k[k]y is used to show the permission to carry out actions, similar to "may" "can (permission not ability)" in English. zh means "straight". You can use it for comparison and show the speaker's expectation. Tmen mitin y[y] hu ji, ji shujio. The airport is too far away from the hotel. Chinese sentences and English sentences have a very similar word order. I am very unhappy.. A few examples are a plate of spaghetti, a bowl of rice, a bottle of water, a pack of dogs, etc. ), Whats your name? (literal translation: listen but not understand), Students understood this book. However, slightly different from , emphasizes that the action is in progress RIGHT NOW. can also be used as the complement to verbs like xi(write), shu(speak), kn(look) and tng(listen). Hozi w zutin jin le t. Time words such as today, tomorrow, and yesterday usually come after the subject but before the verb. When reading a number that is not followed by any measure word, the trailing zero(s) can be omitted. When we want to describe something we dont use the verb to be, we have to put something else before an adjective. You also learned about that to negate a verb, you can simply place before it. I want to eat three more. This is to show that an action (e.g. In English, we say place A is far from or close to place B. If the verb is followed by an object, you should repeat the verb as shown in the new pattern subject + verb + object + verb + + duration + . (the movement is away from the speaker). It can also be placed before an adjective as in the pattern "something/someone + + adjective" to indicate "rather" and "relatively". You may remember that to indicate an actions completion, you should put after the action. You can have two different subjects in this pattern. Asking yes/no questions in Chinese is very simple, all you need to do is add ma (neutral tone) to the end! Moms (younger) brothers name is Zhang Ming. If there the subjects for both parts are the same, you should place the subject at the very beginning before . Students are not going to the U.S. tomorrow. Please note that similar to (I am happy), "" here is used to connect the subject and . When I arrive, I will tell you. The sentence n ch min will translate as "You eat noodles" because it would be a bit odd to just eat a single noodle. To describe a more specific location in Chinese, you can use the structure + location + l (inside) / wi (outside) / shng (on) / xi (under). The question word for what in Chinese is shnme. With months its the same, only you add the number before yu (month). ), The teacher is in front of me. In this case, you can choose to drop either of the subjects. / We happily spent/celebrated the Spring Festival happily. You can think of as similar to adding "s" in English, so A B is equivalent to As B. The bus will pass by the school and my home. (literal translation: Their restaurant's beef is difficult to eat.). ), They are learning Chinese. The first use of is to ask "which" questions in the form of . " + vehicle + + place" simply means to take some vehicle to somewhere. Please ask one more time. Du losh men li shu, mi ge xushng du hn[hn] ki. You learned about li and q as to come and to go. (literal translation: I am on the teacher's backside.). In addition to tennis, he also wants to play volleyball. You can put this pattern before + verb to ask how to get to a place. It goes between the subject (who or what we are describing) and the adjective (what we are describing it as). Keep in mind that you can only have a noun after , if the object of the verb is a pronoun, it must come after and before the time.
It must always come after the subject and before the verb.
How to get to the hotel from the airport? His daughter doesn't want to take the bus to the supermarket. Grandma cant hear what dad said clearly. The pattern is subject + verb + + duration + . The mall often has discounts./ The mall is often on sale. If you place after a verb, it emphasizes the action was done to completion. d refers to "land" and "earth". Mma mi le hn du pnggu, yu de sh l s de, yu de sh hng s de. zhng/ zhngzi/ zi before a verb indicates the action is ongoing. The fuller structure is ", yobrn/ fuz" which expresses "luckily, otherwise". has many uses. You can also use to express "wanting to do something" via the pattern "subject + + verb".
You have learned about " + place" to show "going to a place". Zero in Chinese is lng. T nr b[b]yo zu gngch q chosh. So "I do not have a telephone" translates as . In Chinese, there are specific words for older brother and younger brother, and the same goes for sister.. You have learned about de to connect an action and its degree complement. What relatively tasty are their dumplings. To list a condition and its consequence in English, you use the if then structure. Adjective + s le, this rather morbid phrase literally means to death and is used quite often in Chinese as a way to exaggerate something. W mi mi dinno, ynwi t ti gu le. The sentences normal indicate that the two subjects have something in common, so the complete pattern is " + subject A + subject B + ". You can also see them come before the subject, but never after the verb. means money and the literal meaning of is how much money. You can use the pattern subject + + name as your first practice. Orally, can be omitted. Please tell a little bit about your story. The first indicates the completion of the action, and the second expresses the meaning of up until now. When you talk about where something takes place, we use the phrase + location, which goes after the subject but before the verb. To make a verb or a verb phrase indicate completeness, you just need to add after it. and can substitute without changing the meaning. It looks similar to the rule "adding 'ly' to adjectives can make adverbs" in English. is normally used in the pattern " + measure word + + action/description". Similar to English, if the subjects of the sentences after and are the same, you can omit either one or sometimes even both. Tmen xin ch wnfn, zi ch shu[shu]gu, rnhu shuy. (the movement is out and away from the speaker). sentences are the most common way to create passive verbs in Chinese. When pronounced as "de", can be put after adjectives and change them into adverbs (words describing verbs}. When will you come down and eat? Chinese has a specific word to talk about where someone or something is located. Hozi wmen zi ji l. There is no apple in the fridge. To ask "why" questions, you can start by making a regular statement sentence, then place wishnme(why) after the subject. W hn[hn] xhun Zhnggu, su[su]y w xing xu Zhngwn. (I won't play for a long time.). You can use both and . (literal translation: What are you called? Losh b[b] sh zi xuxio kn jin w de. You can place it after a verb as a complement to show the subject has the ability to understand something. The passive pattern makes the action recipient the subject, and the doer into a secondary place, even not included in some cases. To say "wanting to do", simply put the verb after . However, this construction is for negating present actions and habits. How many students are there in the school? To say 8:58 am/pm in English, you would say "eight fifty-eight" or "two minutes to nine".
Dad has been continuously traveling./ Dad has been traveling all the time. Basically, the two ways of questioning can be safely interchanged. To make a Chinese sentence using , you should follow the pattern " + measure word + noun". In Chinese, you need to use a measure word whenever you use (this), (that), or a number. You use this pattern to compare one thing with a general fact. In order to say "I eat" or "I am eating" in Chinese, you have to include what is being eaten, you cannot use just by itself. In most cases, there is only in a sentence. White wine distilled from grapes is called bi pto ji. Wmen zh nng zu shng q. is to show the change of state (that dog used to be there but not anymore). Zhl miyu gngch. To askyes or no questions, you have learned that you can put at the end of the sentence. they/them (a group of males or a mixed group), The teachers student(s) / The student(s) of the teacher. can also be used to describe circumstances and conditions. ), How do I get to the hospital by bus? In many cases, you can choose to omit without altering the meaning. ( is followed by the starting point of the action). after the word Xngq (week) to get the day of the week. I study from 9 o'clock to 5 o'clock every day. Apart from expressing "not wanting something", b[b]yo is also popularly used to command someone not to do something. Dad wants to buy a little bit of lamb. The word du can be translated as either "both" or "all" in English. / Do you want to try a little bit? Similarly, in Chinese, you can choose to say or use ch. (well is to show how we eat. The pattern "adjective + " is similar to " + adjective +" to convey exclamatory statement. So you can finally express past tense actions! You should pronounce the second verb in this pattern with the neutral tone. If you want to express possession, saying that someone/something belongs to someone/something else, the word de (neutral tone) is used to connect the two elements. Normally present actions are negated with , but is an exception. and cng are similar to each other since they both mean from. For example, if the sentence mentions "Italy" where people may drink white wine more often than Chinese spirits, you can use to indicate white wine and make the sentence less clumsy. When you use the pattern "subject + + adjective", please be aware that you should choose adjectives with unpleasant meanings. Similarly, to negate an adjective, one pattern is "subject + + adjective", such as (I am not happy). ), I want to play games. Traditionally it was used mostly for negative things, but nowadays you can hear it for positive things as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/wiki/start, Chinese Grammar Wiki and their accompanying Memrise flashcards. ), Whats his surname? The subject is not always necessary for this sentence pattern. I dont know if this cup of coffee is yours or mine. Reasons to use passive sentences in Chinese include 1) you want to address that the action recipient has been negatively affected; 2) you want to address the action recipient more than the doer; 3) you try not to mention the doer for some reason. Please follow the pattern "subject + + description of the subject's action". When kui/ kuiyo/ yo shows up with , and there is a verb between them, it means the action is about to happen very soon. qngch by itself means to be clear. (Weekend is almost here.). (the movement is towards the speaker), Mom, I will go back (home) tomorrow. You learned about the pattern "subject + adverb + adjective", such as (I am happy). can also express something is happening.
You can follow the English pattern using the verb gi (to give) to indicate the action of passing things to someone. Different from placed before unpleasant adjectives, "adjective + " is used to express "a little bit more of a condition". Please note that can be omitted and is short for . We use it more for stating details related to the verb in the past. The computer is too expensive, so I didn't buy it. We learned about when learning how to ask for telephone numbers. It can be used to show the cause of death, eg. In this case, you can omit the subject for the part. Please note that verbs in verb + / pattern should imply inherent movements by their own, such as shng(to go up) and xi(to go down). We do something similar in English but to a much lesser degree. I will go and take a look. de (neutral tone) also plays a role here. Although it is not common to see both "although" and "but" in an English sentence (just like this sentence), you need to include both surn (although) and dnsh (but) in a Chinese sentence. Importantly, an appropriate measure word should follow . Wde mngzi sh Duo. Duolingo Tips and Notes Wiki is a FANDOM Lifestyle Community. (The shop used to have apples. (probably the speaker is politely refuse an invitation. Since can express an ongoing action, you can use the pattern "subject + + + verb" to indicate someone has been/is continuously doing something. chle means "apart from", "except" and "besides". When you are only using , you may want to show your gratefulness that the opposite situation didn't happen to influence the schedule. However, you should also spell out the zeros before the unit position. " + + verb" and " + verb + " are also commonly used and they convey a more intensified degree. Sounds unnatural in English as it is (having both "every" and "all"), serves to emphasize the quantity in a sentence. can be dropped. Was it yesterday that you went to the hospital? To say someone does not have something, you do not use b, instead, you use mi. There are three main places where you will see this: with all 3rd tones (low then rising tones), with the character y (1/one), and with the character b (no, not). The same case also applies to and , but for (month) you have to add (). If you want to say "the first student" with a noun after the ordinal number, you should follow the pattern " + number + measure word + noun". Xinzi de fng hn d. Both + verb and + verb are commonly used. You can choose to omit the noun if it has already been mentioned. Keep in mind, however, that you can also see this in sentences about the future when is showing that one action was completed before another. Chinese people repeat the same verb twice in a sentence to create an easygoing tone, indicating the brevity of the action. Although it is not rainy today, it is going to rain tomorrow. ne is placed at the end of a sentence to ask how about?/what about?. (literal translation: You are surnamed Wang. The only exception is Sunday, where we add tin or r. The noun at the end is an option to make the question more specific.
The same thing happens to adjectives with two or more characters where you can choose to only repeat the first character or both characters, though it sounds more natural to only repeat the first character. In addition to expressing the negation of actions in the past, can also be placed after a location to show that something does not exist there. " + adjective + + + something/someone" is used to to address the thing/person. Years are also very easy to say, rather than saying two thousand and seventeen or twenty seventeen, you just say each number individually followed by (year). zu means being left and yu means being right. ), He walks very fast. Rgu w b[b] zi ji, n ji gi w[w] d dinhu.
When you have a 3rd tone followed by any other non-3rd tone syllable, it only lowers, it doesnt rise at the end. / On the chair, there is no newspaper. Pinyin in brackets is the actual pronunciation as a result of the change of tone. It can also be used in statements when there is a question implied. + number + digit name. When a verb phrase comes after zi, instead of referring to a location, indicates that the action is happening now. The beef from their restaurant tastes bad. When it comes to words with two or more characters, in the first part, you can just say the first character (of course you can say the whole, though it sounds less natural), as in these cases: In Chinese, if you want to describe the degree or the condition of an action, you can add de (neutral tone) and an adjective phrase to it (what you are describing the subject as). This word is , and it means to be at or located in. While hngji only means red wine, has two meanings. (comparison and wish), six watermelons and a half/ six and a half watermelons, twelve hours and a half/ twelve and a half hours, three minutes to half-past five (5:27 am/pm). When there is no specific context, biji refers to Chinese spirits that are made from fermented cereals (sorghum, maize, etc.). Does the supermarket take credit card or cash? We place right where the number would go. You can translate it as "often". Although he is full, he still wants to eat.
We do something similar in English, but to a much lesser degree. is followed by a sentence revealing the truth, and leads to an adverse reaction to the former statement. n combined with other words can be used to ask where and which questions. Here well take a quick look at how the 3rd tone changes. Not only are the watches expensive, but the clothes are expensive too. y[y]dinr ( in southern China) literally means "a little bit". Students have been learning Chinese for one year. The same thing also happens with words like this or that (demonstrative pronouns). The pattern "" is used to describe actions in sequence and indicates "firstly,., and then". (she was seven years old last year. (Otherwise, the wind would have blown on us. It is difficult to prepare for the geography test./ The geography test is difficult to prepare. (literal translation: To arrive at the hospital, how to take bus? Please note that, itself is a measure word so that there is no need to place an extra measure word between and . This pattern is applicable to every number on the clock face to avoiding using big numbers, for example, 7:16 can be rather than . When we want to say that something is something, we use the word sh, which is the verb to be. * here indicates that there is a new condition (I used to watch TV, but starting from this weekend, I will not watch it anymore.). In informal settings, similar to English, you can choose to use either or in a sentence.
One thousand three hundred twenty-one / 1,321, One thousand three hundred twenty / 1,320, One thousand three hundred and two / 1,302. By advancing the action recipient, the new pattern intends to concentrate on the influence or the result of an action on the action recipient. You can place before all adjectives to form the superlative adjectives (the most, the worst, the biggest, etc.). You can also put after , which also indicates completion. Most commonly, it is placed before verbs or adjectives to show that an action or a condition unexpectedly happens in a short time. If there are two subjects, they should come after both and . ), I am a little bit too busy today. Luckily, we are at home. ynwi is used to introduce causes, while suy is followed by effects and results. Please note there is no specific word for yes or no in Chinese. The very popular structure "subject + + event A, + event B" is used to describe that as soon as event A has taken the place, event B would happen immediately. Differently, () in the pattern "subject + () + adjective + ()!" They eat dinner first, then eat fruit, and after that brush their teeth. They can also serve as complements placed after verbs to describe where exactly the movement is heading. Normally the phrase is after subject + verb. (emphasis: at the school). It is almost weekend. The original meaning of zu is "to sit". means to complete and to finish. ( seems more important in this sentence). The pattern is used to address the subjectivity. ), The shop doesnt have any apples any more. The pattern + measure word + noun serves to ask which. family), and for institutions and organization you are involved with (e.g. You can use the pattern "subject + adjective + + adverb + verb". Also, when you add , you no longer need to add to mean to be.. / I watched a one-hour worth of TV. You can't add to make a command/suggestion or indicate a future event. is followed by the starting point and leads the ending point. zhngjin means middle. (literal translation: I am on the teacher's left side. When it comes to statements, for both, you generally have the subject (who is performing the action), followed by the verb (what that person or thing is doing), and lastly the object (what is receiving the action). can be omitted in this structure. In fact, this pattern also applies to adjectives. We will look at other measure words later in the course. cng refers to "from" in English and kish means "to start". Starting from this weekend, I will not watch TV. It can be used for both times and locations. Dinno ti gu le, su[su]y w mi mi. (literal translation: listen but not understand), They left last June. serves to connect two qualities that don't contrast with each other. The structure verb + y[y]xi indicates that the action is conducted in a brief manner. That clothes looks/appears to be expensive. There are different ways to say or in Chinese. If you use the "verb + + verb" pattern, you should not put at the end of the question. I will frequently go to Beijing next year. To describe you are doing two things together, you can use the construction + action 1 + + action 2. "Between A and B" is described in Chinese as "AB". My dad eats breakfast from 7 o'clock to 8 o'clock every day in the morning. You should replace with to show "not going to do" something. There is no exception to this rule. When saying dates, you start with the year followed by the month and finally the day of the month. This is to show that an action (e.g. and are both commonly used. How much does the computer cost? We spent/celebrated the Spring Festival happily. To build on that, the complete way to express actions in progress is to further place zhe (neutral tone) right after the verb and before the object if there is one. When is used as an independent number or as part of a series of numbers, it is pronounced with a high tone y. (znme) means "how". ), His name is Andy. Also, you can also put at the beginning of a sentence. (T) surn hn[hn] bo, dnsh t hi xing ch. The pattern A + +B + + / bin simply indicates literal translation: A is on B's left/right side. ), Whats your name? This is only when talking about two nouns or a pronoun and a noun. Chinese dates (and addresses) start from biggest to smallest. Today he doesn't have time. Adding gu after the verb can indicate actions that one has experienced in the past. ), I am behind the teacher. is used for people and objects in general. The fish mom cooked is both healthy and delicious. Qng[qng] jing y[y] jing n de gsh. (action on a little bit of the object), I know a little bit of Chinese. Although b is used to negate every other verb, there is one exception: yu, to have. Mostly, is followed as an indicator of the completion. How many teachers does your older brother have? Tmen de hny[y] shupng trn tgo le. Different from verb + , the pattern verb + emphasizes the action was totally finished. (the movement is down away from the speaker). The wind is very strong now. We eat very well. Apart from referring to locations, can also be seen before verbs to show actions in progress. To read numbers for quantity in Chinese, similar to English, you can spell them out as number + digit name (thousand, hundred, etc.) To say "not only, but also" in Chinese, you can use the pattern " b[b]dn rqi". The positive pattern is verb + + and verb + is for negation. Previously, you learned about yo + something to express "wanting something". , , , , , and , to name a few, can serve as compound complements and be attached to verbs. dng by itself means to understand. The most common object people will use for the verb 'to eat' is rice, fn, since in China it is eaten with almost every meal. qin refers to being front while hu means being behind. (It should be a quick one. Ynwi w hn[hn] xhun Zhnggu, su[su]y w[w] xing xu Zhngwn. It is commonly used to ask people to do something or it can end with to indicate the completion of an action.