How to Express an Ongoing State or a Continuity of an Action in Chinese
In Chinese, and unlike in English, people don’t change the form of a word to express the ongoing continuity of an action or a state of being. Instead, Chinese focuses…
“越来越” (yuè lái yuè) VS “越…越…” (yuè…yuè…): Two Similar Phrases But With Different Uses
Introduction We are all familiar with the basic English expression “more and more”, an expression which actually exists in many languages. Chinese is no exception. Chinese learners are taught these…
Understanding Sentences with Serial Verb Phrases in Chinese
In this article, we are going to focus on ‘连动句(lián dòng jù)’, which are Sentences with Serial Verb Phrases, the last of the special sentences in Mandarin. This kind of…
Mastering Existential Sentences(存现句) in Mandarin
Let’s now look at ‘存现句’, which are called Existential Sentences. Existential Sentences are an especially useful structure in Mandarin. Chinese people use it to express the existence, appearance, or disappearance…
Complex Structure in Chinese: Pivotal Sentence
This time, we are going to talk about ‘兼语句’ (Jiānyǔjù), Pivotal sentence, which is a special structure that plays an important role in Chinese. I believe many learners willhave or…
Separable Words in Chinese (离合词): Breaking Down the Complexity of the Language
In Chinese, you can use either “帮助” (bāngzhù) or “帮忙”(bāngmáng) to mean "help." But, if you say "帮忙他" (bāngmáng tā) to say "help him", your Chinese teacher will correct you.…
Making Comparisons in Chinese – All about bǐ-structure(比字句)
Comparing things or people is a common practice in daily life. We make comparisons using various attributes like length, weight, size, age, and so on. The most commonly used comparative…
“早饭吃完了”(The breakfast has been eaten) – Learn All About the Unmarked Passive Sentence in Chinese
Passive sentences make up a big and important part of modern Chinese. There are generally two types: Marked Passive Sentences and Unmarked Passive Sentences. We have talked about Marked Passive…
Constructing Passive Sentences in Chinese Using “被字句”(Bèi-structure)
In Chinese, the use of “passive sentences” is fairly common and foreigners who are not used to passive sentences are often confused by them when learning the language. So ,…