Mandarin Chinese Verbs and Word Order

Once you begin studying Chinese grammar, you'll notice that verbs are not inflected in Chinese. In Spanish class you may have practiced "Yo tengo / Tu tienes / l tiene / Nos tenemos" and so on, or "Ich habe / Du hast / Er hat / Wir haben" in German. In Chinese, however, only one form of each verb e ists. !hile this ma"es memori#ing "con$ugation tables" unnecessary, it does mean that word order is very important in Chinese sentences. !ord order is often the only indication in Chinese to tell, so to spea", who is doing what to whom. In normal Chinese declarative sentences, word order is the same as that of normal %nglish declarative sentences, sub$ect & verb & ob$ect, as this e ample shows'

(O)% Chinese personal pronouns are made plural by adding the suffi "I" . "!e" -

*m+n,.

)hat's easy enough, but what might seem strange at first is the absence in Chinese of "helping" words we have in %nglish, such as the .to/ of infinitive verbs *"I want to go.", and articles .a/, .an/, and 'the/. 0efore we get too confused with that idea, loo" at a couple more e amples.

(otice that both "I watch )1" and "I am watching )1" are translated as . Chinese also uses no helping verbs li"e 'am' and therefore doesn't differentiate grammatically between 'watch' and 'am watching'. )o complete this illustration, let's build on this e ample until we have a full compound sentence. Spend some time with this one, and notice that the word order of Chinese parallels that of %nglish at each step.

)his doesn't mean, however, that every Chinese sentence will have the same structure as its direct %nglish translation. !e're only saying that a great many do. Got it2 Good.

Verbal Aspect: Expressing "Tense" in Mandarin Chinese Grammar

!hen you were reading about verbs $ust now, I heard you as", ")hen how can we e press past and future tense in Chinese, whether something will happen tomorrow, is happening now, or happened yesterday2" % cellent 3uestion4 I "new you were a sharp one. 5nd let's call this element of Chinese grammar the "verbal aspect" instead of "tense" here, $ust to be precise. )o answer your 3uestion in broad terms, let's pretend for a moment that %nglish verbs have only one form each, with no inflections or aspects or tenses whatsoever. 6or e ample, say we have the verb 'go' but no such thing as went, gone, am going, will go, and etc. (othing but 'go'.

I go 0ei$ing. She go 0ei$ing. !e go 0ei$ing.

7ow would we try to e press tense and time in %nglish under these circumstances2 8robably li"e this, which is one way Chinese does it'

)omorrow I go 0ei$ing. 9ight now she go 0ei$ing. :esterday we go 0ei$ing.

5dverbs4 Instead of inflecting verbs, the Chinese language relies heavily on the use of adverbs to communicate what %nglish and many other languages do with different verb tenses. 5nd loo"ing at the literal translations in the following e amples, you reali#e that %nglish could probably also get by without verb inflections in a pinch'

)here are other ways of e pressing tense & I mean, verbal aspect & in Chinese, such as with "aspectual particles." )hese can help us differentiate, for e ample, between "I went to 0ei$ing *yesterday," and "I have been to 0ei$ing *before,." !e'll loo" at these e amples ne t.

Mandarin Chinese Particles & Modals

"8articles." Sounds li"e it could be ;uantum 8hysics, I "now, but it's not. It's still Grammar. Sorry. In addition to using adverbs, many of the linguistic operations which %nglish performs by changing the form of the verb, or by using possessive pronouns, are accomplished in Chinese by adding a particle to the sentence. 8articles typically occur in the neutral tone. )he following e amples introduce us to three different "inds of particles' structural, interrogative, and aspectual.

Structural Particles Indicate Possession

One of the particles used most is *de,. 5dded to a noun or pronoun, this structural particle performs the same function as the %nglish possessive "apostrophe s" *'s,, or creates the e3uivalent of possessive pronouns, li"e his, her, their, and so on.

Interrogative Particles Create Questions

5dding the interrogative particle a 3uestion. *ma, to the end of a declarative statement turns the sentence into

Aspectual Particles Indicate Verbal Aspect

7ere the particles are aspectual particles, which we loo"ed at on the previous page. )hese often serve to communicate some subtle differences in meaning. 5 couple good e amples to compare are *le, and *g<o,, as they both indicate that something happened in the past. =et's stic" with our "I go 0ei$ing" e ample, , and loo" at some conte ts in which we might use *le, and *g<o, to answer different "inds of 3uestions'

Mandarin Chinese Meas re Words

In %nglish, we often count in units, for e ample'

One pair of soc"s )wo rounds of ammunition )hree cases of wine 6our bunches of bananas

)he Chinese language also uses words li"e "pair" and "case" when counting one or more instance of an ob$ect. In Chinese, though, these measure or "counting" words must be used every time ob$ects are being counted, whether $ust one pencil or >.? billion people. @ifferent measure words are used for different "inds of ob$ects. 6or instance, large flat ob$ects are counted with *zhng)A long round ob$ects use *zh). %ach measure word comes between the number of ob$ects and the name of the ob$ect. 7ere are a few sentences showing counting words in action. )he counting words and their pinyin translations are colored red to help you pic" them out. Otherwise, the word order of the Chinese and %nglish sentences are once again parallel.

(O)% (otice that when we translate these sentences to %nglish, we do not include the measure words. 6or e ample, it is "I have five boo"s," not "I have five units of boo"." )he most commonly used measure word is *gB,. )his also $ust happens to be the one normally used to count people, e cept when being e tra polite, then we use *wBi,. :ou might remember the difference between *gB, and *wBi, as the difference between 'women' and 'ladies', between 'men' and 'gentlemen', and between 'customer' and 'guest'.

(ow please don't tell your Chinese language teacher that I'm the one who told you this, but if you're out and about where Chinese is the native language and you can't remember or don't "now the proper measure word for some "ind of item, you will probably be understood if you use *gB, instead. Cust don't ma"e a permanent habit of it. @o this only until you have learned the correct measure word. If you're luc"y, the person you're tal"ing to might politely correct you and, conse3uently, teach you the proper counting word. )hat's how I learned many of them, from shop"eepers and waitresses wor"ing near 6u#hou Dniversity in China's 6u$ian 8rovince.

Mandarin Chinese ! estion "ormats

=earning how to as" 3uestions in a new language is as important as learning basic survival sentences&&maybe more important. 0y that I mean, what good is learning, "One beer, please, bartender," if you can't as" before that, "% cuse me, where can I get a beer2" Dsing the particle *ma, is not the only way to create a 3uestion. )wo other common formats involve interrogatives *who, what, where, why, when, and how, and the "verb&not&verb" construction.

Interrogatives
6ollowing are e amples of some common interrogatives.

The "Verb-not-Verb" Construction

In this format, a verb is followed by *b) or (mi)&&which mean no, not, or don't&&and then the verb is repeated. )hese e amples will show you how the construction wor"s.

(O)% 7ere's come those tone shifts again. (ormally, *b<, is pronounced in the fourth tone, but before another instance of the fourth tone, it shifts to the second. In the "@o you want to watch a movie2" e ample above, it would be pronounced li"e "yEo bF yEo." 0e aware too that in some cases, *yGu, is better translated as "are." Other times, "are" will be better translated as *shH,.

I'll let your Chinese teachers e plain the difference to you. I don't want to do all their wor" for them.

G'day !h"
!hen is added as a tag to the end of an already completed sentence, it functions much as the %nglish "right2" or "isn't it2" & and perhaps the Canadian "eh2" Seriously. I'm not $o"ing.... 5ll right, all right, maybe it's $ust a little $o"e. can be tagged to a sentence which contains any other verb in the main clause.