HOW TO COUNT BASIC NUMBERS IN CHINESE?

 

If we need to talk about counting things in Chinese, then naturally we need to start with numbers in Chinese first. Please look at the table below to learn the basic 0 to 10 numbers in Chinese?

 

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
líng零	yī一	èr二	sān三	sì四	wǔ 五	liù六	qī七	bā 八	jiǔ 九	shí十

 

You also need to learn the following new words before you move on. Let’s take a few moment to make friends with them:

bǎi	qiān	wàn
百 (hundred)	千 (thousand)	万 (ten thousand)
yì	běn	shū
亿 (hundred million)	本 (quantifier)	书 (book)
píng guǒ	shé	tuǐ
苹果 (apple)	蛇 (snake)	腿 (leg)
jī	lǎo hǔ	gè
鸡 (chicken)	老虎 (tiger)	个 (quantifier)
tiáo	zhǐ
条(quantifier)	只(quantifier)

 

HOW TO COUNT NUMBERS GREATER THAN 10 IN CHINESE?

 

Numbers greater than ten is counted this way:

11, 12, 13 ……

shí·yī, shí’èr, shísān ……

十一,  十二,  十三 ……

 

When it reaches the next ten, write tens and the subsequent numbers as below:

20, 21, 22, 23 …….

èrshí, èrshí yī, èrshí èr, èrshí sān …..

二十,  二十一,  二十二,  二十三 …..

 

When it comes to hundred:

100, 101, 102 …

yī bǎi, yī bǎi líng yī, yī bǎi líng èr ……

一百,  一百零一,  一百零二 ……

 

When it reaches one thousand, it becomes:

1000, 1001, …… 1039 … 1341 …

yī qiān, yī qiān líng yī, …… yī qiān líng sānshí jiǔ …… yī qiān sān bǎi sì shí·yī ……

一千,  一千零一,  …… 一千零三十九 …… 一千三百四十一 ……

 

Whenever there’s one or more consecutive zeros in the middle of those digits, replace all zeros with “零” in Chinese.

 

If you move greater beyond thousand, then you’ll meet “万”:

10000 …… 10020……

yī wàn…… yī wàn líng èrshí……

一万…… 一万零二十……

 

If we keep going, you’ll see million and billion as well:

1 million = 1000,000

In Chinese, you say:

yī bǎiwàn

一百万

 

Then what about 1 billion?

1 billion = 1000,000,000

In Chinese, you say:

shíyì

十亿

 

Please be aware, “billion” is NOT equal to “亿”, it equals to “十亿”. This has been a common mistake for Chinese student when they learn English.

WHAT ARE CHINESE QUANTIFIERS?

 

Now you’ve got the concept of how to count in Chinese. However, you also need to know what is the right quantifier to use when you talk about things quantified. For example, to say “five books”, you can’t just say “五书”, you need to say “五本书 (wǔ běn shū)”. “本” is the quantifier you need to know. It’s normally used for “book like” things.

There are a bunch of quantifiers in Chinese that you need to learn, but I’ll focus on this topic in a separate lesson. In this lesson, you only need to remember the most frequently used quantifiers: “个” “条” and “只”.

“个” is used for most things that can be quantified, such as “九个人(jiǔ gèrén)”, “三个苹果 (sān gè píngguǒ)”……

 

“条” is used for things with long shape, such as “五条蛇 (wǔ tiáo shé)”, “两条腿 (liǎng tiáo tuǐ)”

 

“只” is mostly used for animals, such as “六只鸡 (liù zhǐ jī)”, “四只老虎 (sì zhǐ lǎohǔ)”

 

As a practice, try to type any random combination of the Chinese numbers you just learned into Google and search for Chinese articles that have numbers in it. See if you can figure out how much it is.

 

Welcome to have my face to face lesson on http://www.verbling.com/teachers/dawei  !  🙂

对… 来说 duì tā láishuō sentence pattern is very useful when you need to describe feelings or opinions that are viewed from other’s perspective. Such as “as far as who is concerned…“, “as for …“, etc. It’ll be easier to explain it in an example:

 

duì tā láishuō， zhè fèn gōngzuò tài kūzào。

对他来说，这份工作太枯燥。

As for him, the job is too boring.

 

Got it? OK then, let’s have a quick review on the four new words first before we move on:

Simplified Chinese	Traditional Chinese	Mandarin Pinyin	English Definition
枯燥		ku1 zao4	dry and dull; boring
残疾	殘疾	can2 ji2	disabled; handicapped
国家	國家	guo2 jia1	country
天堂		tian1 tang2	paradise; heaven

 

This sentence pattern is quite strict forward, just replace the “who” in the following pattern, then you can start your sentence with “As for …” or “As far as who is concerned…”.

 

对 + who + 来说, ……

 

Yes, comma is a must!

Let’s look at one more examples:

 

duì cánjírén láishuō， zhège guójiā jiùshì tiāntáng。

对残疾人来说， 这个国家就是天堂。

As for people that are disabled, this country is like a heaven.

 

Is that clear now? If yes, then please proceed to the following practice for today. Please use the sentence pattern you just learned to express the following two sentences. Feel free to leave your homework in the comment area, thanks!

Practice 1.   As for children, family is very important.

Practice 2.   As for university students, university is not simply a school.

 

Welcome to have my face to face lesson on http://www.verbling.com/teachers/dawei  !  🙂

 

Answer 1. 对孩子来说, 家庭很重要.

Answer 2. 对大学生来说, 大学不仅仅是个学校.

 

In this Learn Chinese lesson, we’ll focus on the sentence pattern that is using word “非常 fēicháng ”. Simply put, “非常 fēicháng ” = “very”.

However, the way it is used in Chinese is a bit tricky if you’re trying to duplicate the way “very” is used in English.

When I first started to learn English, I used to say “Very than you!” without feeling odd about the way I used “very”. My Chinese classmates inclined to make the same mistake as I did. Do you know why?

The reason behind this is due to the usage of “very” in Chinese is somewhat different:

You can use “非常” not only before adjectives, but also verbs!

Before we move on, let’s check out a few new words first:

Simplified Chinese	Traditional Chinese	Mandarin Pinyin	English Definition
非常	非常	fei1 chang2	extreme; very;
感谢	感謝	gan3 xie4	(express) thanks; gratitude; thanks;
抱歉	抱歉	bao4 qian4	to be sorry; to feel apologetic; sorry!;
想念	想念	xiang3 nian4	to miss; to remember with longing;
讨厌	討厭	tao3 yan4	to dislike; to loathe;
特别	特別	te4 bie2	especially; particular;
相当	相當	xiang1 dang1	fairly; quite;
家乡	家鄉	jia1 xiang1	hometown

 

 

When you’re done with new words, let’s move on …

To use 非常 fēicháng before adjectives is just the same as “very” being used in English:

非常 + adjective = very + adjective

To use it before verbs is the focus of today’s lesson.

We can say “Thank you very much!” in Chinese like this:

非常感谢!   fēi cháng gǎn xiè!

“感谢 gǎn xiè” has the same meaning as “谢谢 xiè xie”, but sounds more formal. However, if you want to use “非常” to emphasize your gratitude, you have to use “感谢 gǎn xiè” together with “非常  fēi cháng”, instead of “谢谢  xiè xie”. Using “非常感谢  fēi cháng gǎn xiè” in both oral or written circumstances are both OK.

Similar usage of “非常  fēi cháng” can be applied to “I’m so sorry.”

Use “非常抱歉 fēicháng bàoqiàn” or “非常对不起 fēicháng duìbuqǐ” . “抱歉 bàoqiàn” and “对不起 duìbuqǐ” both mean “apologize for …”.

There are some other verbs that can be used after “非常  fēi cháng” as well, such as :

非常看不起 fēicháng kànbuqǐ -> rather look down upon (somebody / something)
非常想念 fēicháng xiǎngniàn -> miss (somebody / something) very much
非常喜欢 fēicháng xǐhuan -> like (somebody / something) very much
非常讨厌 fēicháng tǎoyàn -> dislike (somebody / something) very much
etc.

But still, there are a lot more verbs can not be used this way. The rule to know whether the verb can be used after “非常” actually is quite straightforward:

As long as the verb can be used this way in English:

“verb + very much”
or “verb + a lot”

Then, that verb can be used after “非常  fēi cháng” in Chinese.

For example,

He hates his job very much.

他非常讨厌这份工作.

(tā fēicháng tǎoyàn zhè fèn gōngzuò.)

The alternatives of “非常” are:

很 hěn, 特别 tèbié, 相当 xiāngdāng

 

You can use the above “very” words to do some practice until you can create your own sentences utilizing those words. The following is an example of ways to practice them. You’ll see four different ways of saying “Sister misses hometown very much.”

jiějie fēicháng xiǎngniàn jiāxiāng.

姐姐非常想念家乡.

 

jiějie hěnxiǎng niàn jiāxiāng.

姐姐很想念家乡.

 

jiějie tèbié xiǎngniàn jiāxiāng.

姐姐特别想念家乡.

 

jiějie xiāngdāng xiǎngniàn jiāxiāng.

姐姐相当想念家乡.

 

Is it clear to you now? Welcome to have my face to face lesson on http://www.verbling.com/teachers/dawei  !  🙂

Some Chinese sentence patterns are straightforward translation of the equivalent counterpart in English. There are not many variations for this kind of translation. Once you learned it once, you can use it in any context.

Today we’ll learn one sentence pattern of this kind in this Learn Chinese online lesson. Before we get into the core content, let’s have a quick review of the new words that you need to know first:

jǐn guǎn	réng rán	hái shi
[hanzi]尽管[/hanzi] (although)	[hanzi]仍然[/hanzi] (still)	[hanzi]还是[/hanzi] (still)
bù huì	mǎi	bàofēngyǔ
[hanzi]不会[/hanzi] (won’t)	[hanzi]买[/hanzi] (buy)	[hanzi]暴风雨[/hanzi] (storm)
yǐ jīng	shī bài	cì
[hanzi]已经[/hanzi] (already)	[hanzi]失败[/hanzi] (fail)	[hanzi]次[/hanzi] (times)
kē xué jiā	jiān chí	shí yàn
[hanzi]科学家[/hanzi] (scientist)	[hanzi]坚持[/hanzi] (insist)	[hanzi]实验[/hanzi] (experiment)
zhēn shí	gǎn jué	gào su
[hanzi]真实[/hanzi] (real, true)	[hanzi]感觉[/hanzi] (feelings)	[hanzi]告诉[/hanzi] (tell)

 

Done? OK, let’s move on. The following example sentence is a typical “although” pattern in English:

“Although she likes the book, she won’t buy it.”

To translate it into Chinese, the first thing that we need to find out is the equivalent Chinese word for keyword “although”. Luckily there is a word with exactly the same meaning in Chinese:

尽管 jǐnguǎn

Normally, “尽管” will be working with “仍然 réng rán” or “还是 hái shi” to form the complete although pattern sentence. “仍然” or “还是” means “still” when they are used individually. This is a big difference between English and Chinese. In English, you usually don’t need any other words to help “although” to express the twist. But in Chinese, you usually do need another word to help “尽管” to complete the twist. “尽管” can also be used together with “也 yě” in this kind of sentence. However, sometimes, “尽管” can also be used on its own.

Now let’s translate the example sentence into Chinese using the word combinations we just mentioned above:

jǐnguǎn tā xǐhuan zhè běn shū, tā háishi bùhuì mǎi de.

尽管她喜欢这本书, 她还是不会买的.

 

jǐnguǎn tā xǐhuan zhè běn shū, tā réngrán bùhuì mǎi de.

尽管她喜欢这本书, 她仍然不会买的.

Or simply take “还是” or “仍然” out. In this sentence, it still works!

jǐnguǎn tā xǐhuan zhè běn shū, tā bùhuì mǎi.

尽管她喜欢这本书, 她不会买.

 

Please pay attention to which position “还是” and “仍然” was placed in the sentence. It has to be before verb and after “who”:

她 + 还是 + 不会买的

 

Let’s practice a bit more:

jǐnguǎn míngtiān yǒu bàofēngyǔ, bàba háishi yào qù shàngbān.

尽管明天有暴风雨, 爸爸还是要去上班.

Although it’s going to have storm tomorrow, Dad will still go to work.

 

jǐnguǎn yǐjīng shībài le hěn duōcì, kēxuéjiā réngrán zài jiānchí zuò shíyàn.

尽管已经失败了很多次, 科学家仍然在坚持做实验.

Although he has failed for so many times, the scientist still persists on doing his tests.

 

jǐnguǎn tā ài tā, tā háishi méiyǒu bǎ zìjǐ de zhēnshí gǎnjué gàosu tā.

尽管他爱她, 他还是没有把自己的真实感觉告诉她.

Although he loves her, he just can’t tell her his true feelings.

Is it clear to you now? Welcome to have my face to face lesson on http://www.verbling.com/teachers/dawei  ! 🙂

How do you introduce yourself in Chinese? This might be the most basic sentence pattern you need to know when you first start to learn Chinese. The good thing is only a few sentence patterns serve the purpose of this need:

 

wǒ shì David

我是David.

I am David.

Or …

wǒ jiào David

我叫David.

My name is David.

Or, simply …

David.

Let’s go through all new characters for this lesson in the following table first:

shì	jiào	zhè
是 (is)	叫 (call)	这 (this)
hǎo	hāi	lǎo shī
好 (good)	嗨 (hi)	老师 (teacher)
zǎo shang	xiàwǔ	wǎn shang
早上 (morning)	下午 (afternoon)	晚上 (evening)

Please be careful that you don’t use the direct translation of “This is David” in Chinese to introduce yourself. You use that sentence pattern to introduce people beside you, while gesturing to the person you’re introducing.

You say:

zhè shì Joe

“这是Joe.”

“This is Joe.”

This is a common way to introduce your friends to others.

Introduction normally come after greetings. The exact way you greet to people depends on the relationship between you and the other. But of course, the following greetings can be used to anybody:

nǐ hǎo

你好!

Hello!

 

zǎo shang hǎo

早上好!

Good morning!

 

xià wǔ hǎo

下午好!

Good afternoon!

 

wǎn shàng hǎo

晚上好!

Good evening!

 

If the people you meet is really close to you, you can greet each other with any “free style” lines following “Hi xxxx” (“嗨, xxxx!”) to kick start your conversation. Such as:

hāi , David

嗨, David!

Hi David!

OK, now, let’s see how to give out more details in the introduction:

nǐ hǎo! wǒ jiào David. wǒ shì Zhōng wén lǎo shī

你好! 我叫David. 我是中文老师.

Hello! My name is David. I’m a teacher of Chinese.

Please pay attention to the sentence pattern we’re using here in the introduction above:

who + is + what.

This statement sentence pattern is very easy to understand and duplicate. Because in Chinese, there’s no conjugate. “是” (is) will always be “是” no matter which person it is used for.

Today’s lesson is to learn how to greet to people and introduce yourself in Chinese. It is the very first step to open up a conversation with Chinese. Practice introduction of yourself using the simple sentences you learned from today’s lesson.

You’re encouraged to paste an introduction of yourself in Chinese as your comment.

Welcome to have my face to face lesson on http://www.verbling.com/teachers/dawei  !  🙂

Have yourself a wonderful weekend! See you next time!

 

WHAT IS THE EQUIVALENT COUNTERPART OF “WHAT ABOUT IT?” IN CHINESE?

 

Usually when we chat with each other on something, and you wanna know the other person’s opinion and feelings about the thing you are talking about, you’d always ask:”What about it?”.

In Chinese, there’s a phrase that is right for this purpose:

zěn me yàng?

怎么样?

What about it?

 

Before we continue, please study the following new words first as we always do.

zěn me yàng	yīn yuè huì	jīng cǎi
怎么样(what about it)	音乐会(concert)	精彩(wonderful)
duō shao	duō cháng	duō hǎo
多少(how much, how many)	多长(how long)	多好(how well)
wū zi	xué sheng	nà tiáo hé
屋子(room)	学生(student)	那条河(that river)
zuò
做(do)

 

“WHAT ABOUT IT” IN CHINESE CONTEXT

 

For example, when your friend is telling you he went to a concert last night. You can use that phrase (actually that short sentence if it is used solely as a question) to let your friend tell you more about the concert:

Your friend:

     wǒ zuótiān qù le yīnyuèhuì.

     我昨天去了音乐会.

I went to the concert yesterday.

 

You:

      zěnmeyàng

     怎么样?

What about it?

 

Your friend:

      é, hěn jīngcǎi!

     哦, 很精彩!

Oh, wonderful!

 

Your friend most likely will continue on revealing more and more details about the concert.

THE VARIOUS USAGE OF “HOW” IN CHINESE

 

In fact, “怎么”means “how”. We’ve introduced “how” question pattern in How to ask questions in Chinese (2). Here we need to expand a bit more on this topic again.

For “how” questions, if the questioning part can be totally replaced by “how”, then “how” can be replaced by  “怎么样”. If “how” is combined with other word, such as “how many”, “how long”, “how well” etc., then “how” should be replaced by “多…”:

how many -> 多少 (duō shao)

how long -> 多长 (duō cháng)

how well -> 多好 (duō hǎo)

It will be more clear once you’ve gone through the following examples:

wūzi lǐ yǒu duōshao xuésheng?

屋子里有多少学生?

How many students are in the room?

 

 

nà tiáo hé yǒu duō cháng?

那条河有多长?

How long is the river?

 

 

tā zuò dé yǒu duō hǎo?

她做得有多好?

How well did she do?

 

 

nǐ shì zěnmeyàng zuò de?

你是怎么样做的?

How did you do it?

Welcome to have my face to face lesson on http://www.verbling.com/teachers/dawei  !  🙂

Feel free to drop any questions in your comment. See you next time!

 

I’d assume when you’ve followed my lessons to this far, and you’ve learned Chinese online for some time, you might have given it a try to read some Chinese by yourself. Have you ever been puzzled by the usage of character “的”? Have you ever wondered why it appears all over the place?

Remember when we were talking about “Chinese adjectives” we’ve got to know the very important use of “的” character in “turning a noun into an adjective”? Such as “大的” and “小的”.

Also in “turning noun into pronouns”, Such as “我的” and “你的”.

The above are only part of the magic that “的” character can do. There are more. Please look at this:

wǒ huì qù de. wǒ bùhuì qù de.

我会去的.  我不会去的.

I will go.  I will not go.

 

What on earth is this “的” doing here?! “去” is a verb, not a noun?!

Well, at least if you can tell “去” is a verb instead of a noun, you’re progressing well :-).

Character “的” can be used in willingness statement to emphasize the answer being positive or negative. It is placed at the end of the sentence that is having a willingness word.

It is as if to say “I will go, yes.”

Or, “I won’t go, no.”

There are some Chinese “helping characters” that have no equivalent counterparts in English. To understand them, you have to completely and thoroughly switch your mindset to Chinese. “的” is one of them. I’ve discussed in my previous lessons on another three helping characters in pattern 把, character 就 and character 着.

 

The same function of “的” can be used in “… 是 …” sentence pattern as well:

wǒ shì ài nǐ de.

我是爱你的.

I do love you.

 

wǒ shì bù ài nǐ de.

我是不爱你的.

I don’t love you at all.

 

The second sentence is grammatically correct, but not recommended to be used this way because it’s too hurtful and too blunt to express meaning like this. 🙂

“是…的” is used to enforce what you’re saying is true.

For your practice, please try to use “的” in different sentence patterns that you’ve learned today. Feel free to share your sentences with me and other readers, thanks…

Welcome to have my face to face lesson on http://www.verbling.com/teachers/dawei  !  🙂

If you will make use of your Chinese on the home land of native Chinese populations. Such as China mainland, Taiwan, Singapore…. there’s one lesson that you really can’t miss:”How to ask directions in Chinese?” As long as you’re going to places, there’s no guarantee that you won’t get lost.

In this post, I’ll teach you how to ask and understand directions in Chinese. First of all, let’s get our first look at the four universally agreed directions. At the same time learn some new words as well.

dōng	nán	xī	běi
[hanzi]东[/hanzi]	[hanzi]南[/hanzi]	[hanzi]西[/hanzi]	[hanzi]北[/hanzi]
east	south	west	north

New words:

yán zhe	tiáo	jiē
[hanzi]沿着[/hanzi]	[hanzi]条[/hanzi]	[hanzi]街[/hanzi]
along	quantifier	street
xiàng	hé	dào
[hanzi]向[/hanzi]	[hanzi]河[/hanzi]	[hanzi]道[/hanzi]
towards	river	road
shùn	lù
[hanzi]顺[/hanzi]	[hanzi]路[/hanzi]
along	road

 

Let’s put them on a compass now:

Imagine you got yourself lost after an enjoyable movie in the movie or theater (this is very likely to happen if you watched the movie on a foreign street 🙂 ). You fish out your name card with your name, position and home address on it and ask for directions to local people that can only understand Chinese.

In the response you got, you might hear something like this to start with:

“ yánzhe zhè tiáo jiē wǎng dōng zǒu, ……”

“沿着这条街往东走, ……”

“Walk towards east along this street …”

The phrase in this sentence ”往东走 wǎng dōng zǒu” means “walk towards east”. Don’t forget the reverse word order in Chinese that I’ve taught so many times: where + verb. That’s why in Chinese, the phrase become this order:”towards east walk”.

The word “towards” can be translated by “往 wǎng”, “向 xiàng”, or ”顺 shùn”. It is OK to say: ”往东走wǎng dōng zǒu”, “向东走xiàng dōng zǒu” or “顺东走 shùn dōng zǒu”.

“沿着 yán zhe” means “along” in English.

“ 沿着这条街 yánzhe zhè tiáo jiē”=”along this street”

 

Now let’s have a mini practice to get your hands wet:

Please express the “walk along this road towards north” in Chinese:

First, change word order first: along this road + towards north + walk;

Second, fill in Chinese words like this: 沿着这条道 + 向北 + 走

街 jiē,  道 dào, and 路 lù can all be used to mean “the street”.

You might wonder now that what if it’s not right on the four directions. But instead in between of them. Such as south west, or north east etc.?

The answer is simple, put the two direction characters together. Such as: 西南, 东北 etc.

The only catch here is the order of the two characters in a compound word is reversed from that of English.

In Chinese, “south” and “north” are always the ending character. “west” and “east” are always the beginning character. Yet in English, it’s the opposite.

I’ve put them into a table for you to memorize easily:

South east	South west
东南 dōng nán	西南 xī nán
North east	North west
东北 dōng běi	西北 xī běi

 

Isn’t that easy?

Now let’s finish our lesson with some examples:

wǒ de jiā yánzhe zhè tiáo jiē wǎng dōngběi zǒu jiù néng kànjiàn.

我的家沿着这条街往东北走就能看见.

You’ll see my house if you walk along this street towards north east.

 

xuéxiào yánzhe zhè tiáo hé wǎng xīnán zǒu jiùshì.

学校沿着这条河往西南走就是.

To get to the school, you need to walk towards south west along this river.

Please practice using the direction words to ask for directions and answer for directions. It will come handy next time you got lost 🙂

Welcome to have my face to face lesson on http://www.verbling.com/teachers/dawei  !  🙂

“Let’s have a break!”

No, I’m just kidding. 🙂 Let’s finish today’s Learn Chinese Online lesson and then we can have a break.

If I ask you to repeat my opening sentence in Chinese, do you know how to say it? Before we answer that question, let’s learn some new Chinese words first.

Simplified Chinese	Traditional Chinese	Mandarin Pinyin	English Definition
休息	休息	xiu1 xi5	rest; to rest;
让	讓	rang4	to let sb do sth; to have sb do sth;
一起	一起	yi1 qi3	together
照看	照看	zhao4 kan4	to look after; to attend to
解决	解決	jie3 jue2	to solve (problems, issues)
问题	問題	wen4 ti2	question; problem; issue

 

Are you done with the new words now. If yes, let me explain how the opening sentence is said in Chinese:

让 ràng (Let) 我们 wǒmen (us) 休息 xiūxi (have a break) 一下 yīxià (for a little while) 吧 ba (exclamation particle)！

I’ll reprint it in clean text here:

让我们休息一下吧!

 

Basically you just need the following pattern to phrase your sentence for “Let’s …” sentence pattern:

让 ràng (Let) 我们 wǒmen (us) + do something.

As a matter of fact, you can also take out the character “让” to mean the same thing:

我们休息一下吧!

Then, is there any difference between the sentence with 让 and the sentence without 让? Well, the difference is very subtle: using 让 sounds a bit more formal; not using 让 sounds more leisure. Well, generally speaking, they are same.

What if we’re not using “Let’s …” pattern, we just need to use “let” with other pronoun than “us”?

For example: “Let me take care of him!”

That’s no different from “Let’s …” sentence pattern. You can either start your sentence with 让, or without 让. You’ll see this sentence in Chinese in the following examples. Please repeat with the recording to learn how to say them as well:

 

wǒmen yīqǐ xué Zhōngwén ba!

我们一起学中文吧!

Let’s study Chinese together!

 

ràng wǒmen yīqǐ xué Zhōngwén ba!

让我们一起学中文吧!

Let’s study Chinese together!

 

wǒ lái zhàokàn tā ba!

我来照看他吧!

Let me take care of him!

 

ràng wǒ lái zhàokàn tā ba!

让我来照看他吧!

Let me take care of him!

 

tā lái jiějué zhège wèntí ba!

她来解决这个问题吧!

Let her solve this problem!

 

ràng tā lái jiějué zhège wèntí ba!

让她来解决这个问题吧!

Let her solve this problem!

 

“Let” is also a favorite character in poems. A sentence like this has frequent appearance in Chinese poems or essays:

ràng chūn fēng chuī fǔ wǒ de chángfà.

让春风吹抚我的长发.

Let the spring breeze caress my long hair.

Are you clear on how to use “Let …” sentence pattern in Chinese now? If yes, let’s have a real break now. Before you go, tell me one “Let …” sentence in Chinese please.

Welcome to have my face to face lesson on http://www.verbling.com/teachers/dawei  !  🙂

Have yourself a wonderful weekend! See you next time!

 

In this busy world, don’t we all live in a multi-task life style? To describe things that are undertaken at the same time in Chinese might be a challenge to you if you don’t know what sentence pattern to use. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to.

Say you want to say: “He’s chatting with his friend while watching TV.”

For this type of sentences in Chinese, usually there are two sentence patterns you can choose from:

…( yī) biān…( yī) biān…

…(一)边…(一)边…

 

… yòu… yòu…

…又…又…

Before we start on examples, please spend some time to learn new words first.

hé	péng you	liáo tiān
和 (and)	朋友 (friend)	聊天 (chat)
kàn	diànshì	dǎgōng
看 (look at)	电视 (TV)	打工 (do labor job, work)
shàng xué	yùn dòng	yīn yuè
上学 (go to school)	运动 (exercise, sports)	音乐 (music)

 

Let’s look at “…(一)边…(一)边…” first. To use this pattern, the example sentence could be rewrite into the following Chinese sentence:

tā yībiān hé péngyou liáotiān, yībiān kàn diànshì.

他一边和朋友聊天, 一边看电视.

You can keep the “一 “, or get rid of it. It’s all up to you, without “一 “, the sentence become shorter. Comma is not must-to-have in this case.

tā biān hé péngyou liáotiān biān kàn diànshì.

他边和朋友聊天, 边看电视.

In this sentence pattern, the “who” only appears in the first sentence, but not in the second sentence. Let me show how the sentence was constructed in more steps, then it’ll be clear to you.

First, you have two independent sentences with the same “who” doing different things:

First sentence:
tā hé péngyou liáotiān.

他和朋友聊天.

 

Second sentence:

tā kàn diànshì.

他看电视.

Now, you want to tell people he’s doing the two things at the same time. Place “一边 “ and “一边 “ into the right place. Get rid of the “who” in the second sentence. Add a comma in the middle. Then you’re done:

他 + 一边 + 和朋友聊天, 一边 + 看电视.

(the second “ 他“ is gone. ) Get it?

Alternative “…又…又…” can be used the same way, with or without comma.

So the example can be translated into the following too:

tā yòu hé péngyou liáotiān yòu kàn diànshì.

他又和朋友聊天又看电视.

These two sentence patterns can also be used when the two things don’t happen strictly at the same time:

tā yībiān dǎgōng, yībiān shàngxué.

她一边打工, 一边上学.

She’s working part time while studying in the university.

Another example:

tā yòu ài yùndòng, yòu ài yīnyuè. 

他又爱运动, 又爱音乐.

He not only loves sports, but also music.

Have you learned something new today? If you do, try to translate the following sentences into Chinese:

“I was dancing while singing.”

“My brother not only loves watching TV, but also playing games.”

You can use google translator or any dictionary you like to look up the words that you don’t know. Then use the two sentence patterns to translate the above sentences. Feel free to show your translation in the comment area.

Welcome to have my face to face lesson on http://www.verbling.com/teachers/dawei  !  🙂