Lesson 2.1: Basic Grammar

Welcome to Unit 2, where you’ll learn basic Chinese grammar structures! When we talk about grammar, we’re referring to the rules and norms that allow us to combine ideas into sentences. After the fire hydrant of information that was Unit 1, you’ll be pleased to hear that Chinese grammar is simpler and far more consistent than that of English or other European languages.

SVO order

Simple Chinese sentences are assembled just like in English: a subject, then a verb, then an object (“SVO order” for short).

Things Chinese doesn’t have

If you look closely at the examples above, you’ll notice a few features of the English sentences that are absent in their Chinese equivalents. They are:

• Articles
  In English, articles (the words a, an, and the) are usually required before nouns. In Chinese, however, there are no articles. While “I see dog” is wrong in English, the Chinese equivalent 我看到狗 (wǒ kàn dào gǒu, I see a dog) is perfectly correct: no article needed.
• Plural nouns
  English nouns change form when they become plural, usually by gaining the letter S, but Chinese nouns don’t have plural forms: the exact same word is used in the singular and the plural. That means that 我喜欢苹果 (wǒ xǐ huān píng guǒ) could actually translate to “I like apples” or “I like the apple.” That may sound ambiguous, but in practice, it’s usually clear from the context whether someone is talking about one thing or multiple things. For example, if someone said 我喜欢苹果 while talking about their favorite foods, it would be interpreted as “I like apples,” but if they said the same sentence while eating a single sliced apple with friends, it would be interpreted as “I like the apple.” In cases when the context doesn’t make it clear, it’s common to explicitly say the number of things being referenced to, as in “one apple,” “three apples,” etc. We’ll learn how to do that in Lesson 2.3.
• Conjugation
  In English, verbs take different forms depending on what the subject is, such as “I sing” versus “he sings” (a process called conjugation). Chinese verbs do not conjugate, meaning that the same verb form is used no matter what the subject is. That’s why 他 (tā, he) and 唱 (chàng, sing) can be combined without any modification while, in English, “sing” would have to be converted to “sings.”

Like we said, Chinese grammar is simpler than other languages’ grammar. You don’t need to memorize noun genders, plural forms, irregular verbs, or any of the other complexities that learners of other languages have to deal with.

Saying “to be” with 是 and 很

While we don’t typically think of it this way, the English word “to be” (or “is,” “are,” or any of its other conjugations) has two different meanings:

1. Stating equality: “She is a doctor,” meaning she = doctor
2. Giving descriptions: “She is happy,” meaning one of her traits is happiness (she ≠ happy)

Those two meanings are communicated using different words in Chinese. 是 (shì) means “to be” in the equality sense, while 很 (hěn) means “to be” in the descriptive sense.

Generally, 是 is used for nouns while 很 is used for adjectives.