Chinese Grammar . . At a Glance
Chinese Grammar is pretty interesting in that it resembles English in structure in some areas and then . . the rest is not remotely resembling English. Let's take a look!
Structure
Verbs
At a Glance
Structure: Chinese resembles English in that a sentence can have the same format of subject + verb + object. However, in reading structure it's another matter:
1st Chinese is written with characters and not the Roman alphabet and these characters can mean something or have no meaning and simply complement another character and change another character's meaning slightly.
2nd Reading Chinese is not always from left to right but right to left and top to bottom.
If ever you are in China take time to read some signs there, many have funny erroneous translations into English such as a "walking toilet" for a porta-potty.
Structure
Verbs
At a Glance
Structure: Chinese resembles English in that a sentence can have the same format of subject + verb + object. However, in reading structure it's another matter:
1st Chinese is written with characters and not the Roman alphabet and these characters can mean something or have no meaning and simply complement another character and change another character's meaning slightly.
2nd Reading Chinese is not always from left to right but right to left and top to bottom.
If ever you are in China take time to read some signs there, many have funny erroneous translations into English such as a "walking toilet" for a porta-potty.
Verbs
Ahh Chinese verbs. Chinese verbs are peculiar to many a foreigner because they are best understood in contextual terms.
In Chinese most verbs are inherently expressed in what can be loosely related to englisgh present tense or the present participle. Meaning that in any context or sentence no matter what, the verb "to walk" will mean I walk/walk/to walk. Lost already?
In order to express the past in Chinese you would need to surround that present/ present participle verb with words like yesterday in order to make the present verb refer to the past and thus the whole sentence would literally read "I walk yesterday" which would loosely correlate to "I walk"ed" yesterday."
Spend a Lot of time going over grammar there is MUCH to learn.
Another Short lesson:
To negate a verb in Chinese you must insert the negative Chinese word for "not" before the verb much as you do in English. And yes unfortunately there are several exceptions to the rule.
Check out wikipedia here for an in depth look.
At a Glance
Chinese grammar is at times straightforward but it is also unique to learn. The verb does not change irrespective of what pronoun or noun is used. A plural is formed by just adding the particular character after the word being made plural for example (?, mén). Grammatical structure of sentences in Chinese is similar to the English language.
Chinese words are written to form basic sentences that have similar word order to the English language. Chinese verbs indicating the present are different from most other Spanish and English verbs, which conjugate. Chinese verbs do not change form for every tense and person. While English uses “to eat”, “eat” and “ate” which are infinite, present, and simple past respectively, Chinese equals all the forms and both eats and eat use the same “ch?” past tense is easier to express by using adverbs like “yesterday”.
The words representing “she” and “he” share the same sound but have two different characters. When listening to the Chinese language one needs to identify the pronouns depending on context.
Check out wikipedia here for an in depth look.
Chinese words are written to form basic sentences that have similar word order to the English language. Chinese verbs indicating the present are different from most other Spanish and English verbs, which conjugate. Chinese verbs do not change form for every tense and person. While English uses “to eat”, “eat” and “ate” which are infinite, present, and simple past respectively, Chinese equals all the forms and both eats and eat use the same “ch?” past tense is easier to express by using adverbs like “yesterday”.
The words representing “she” and “he” share the same sound but have two different characters. When listening to the Chinese language one needs to identify the pronouns depending on context.
Check out wikipedia here for an in depth look.
