A Summary of the Different Aspects of Chinese Action Expressions
In English, the verb is usually the key to show the different aspects of an action in English, such as be / be doing / was / was doing / are going to / have done / had done, etc.…
Grammar Talk: The use of 是…的 (shì…de) Sentence Structure in Chinese
In our ‘Practical Chinese Level 1 course’, we studied the grammar structure of ‘是...的 (shì...de)’. In this article, we’re going to elaborate a bit more about it. The ‘是...的 (shì...de)’ combination has the function of emphasizing information. It’s similar to…
How to Tell Tenses in Chinese -Use the Adverbs and Nouns of Time Correctly
Unlike English and some other languages, Chinese doesn’t have a specialized pattern of verb changes to indicate tenses. So how do the Chinese tell the different tenses apart? Well, we usually use time words to express different tenses, and these…
Making a Clean Sweep of all Basic Associated Constructions in Chinese
You may have hit a wall in the study of Function words in Chinese. Maybe you have mastered Function words like “着”, “了”, “过”, but the next step is to deal with the myriad words of Associated Constructions, such as…
The Extended Usages of “起来”(qǐlái ) and “下去”(xiàqu)
You may have already learned the how to use the Directional Verbs “……起来” and “……下去”， but in some situations, how they are supposed to be used doesn’t work very well, for example: “唱起来(chànɡ qǐlái)” and “唱下去(chànɡ xiàqu)”. Of course, this…
从(cóng) VS 离(lí) and 向(xiàng) VS 往(wǎng): Two Commonly Confused Chinese Grammar Structures
If you’ve spent more than a year or so learning Mandarin, you’ve probably encountered the familiar predicament where you must decide whether to use 从(cóng) versus 离(lí) or向 (xiàng) versus 往 (wǎng) when talking about distances, directions, periods of time,…
When to Use “有(一)点儿” VS “(一)点儿” in Chinese
During Chinese class, whenever I ask my students, “今天上课累不累？(jīn tiān shàngkè lèi bu lèi? / Do you feel tired in class today?)”, they often answer me with the phrase ”一点儿累(yìdiǎnr lèi)”(×). But the correct phrase to use here is”有一点儿(yǒu yìdiǎnr)”.…
上下(shànɡxià)？左右(zuǒyòu)？前后(qiánhòu)？- Expressing an “Approximate Number” in Mandarin
If you need to express an “Approximate Number” in terms of time, weight, age, or any other term that involves a number, there are a number of ways to do it in Mandarin. This is a fundamental and important language…