Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar

GreetiNGS aNd GoodByeS 24.2 回头见。 回頭見。 Huí tóu jiàn. See you in a moment. (lit. ‘See you in the turn of a head.’) 明天见。 明天見。 Míngt ...

Greetings and goodbyes in letters 24.3 24.2.4 Saying goodbye with reference to time of day 晚安。 Wǎn’ān. Goodnight. Note 晚安 wfn’an ...

GreetiNGS aNd GoodByeS 24.3 Polite but less formal 如晤 rúwù ‘as if talking to you face-to-face’ 建国兄如晤： 建國兄如晤： Jiànguó xiōng rúwù: ...

Greetings and goodbyes in letters 24.3 岁祺/歲祺 suìqí good fortune at the New Year 新禧 xīnxǐ Happy New Year 道安 dào’ān asking about y ...

GreetiNGS aNd GoodByeS 24.3 24.3.3.2 Formal letter 张老师钧鉴： 張老師鈞鑒： Zhāng lǎoshī jūn jiàn: Professor Zhang, for your perusal: [body ...

25 Basic strategies for communication Languages have specific expressions that speakers use to start conversations and to keep t ...

BaSiC StrateGieS For CommUNiCatioN 25.4 25.1.3 attracting attention by indicating that you want to ask a question 请问 (我想)打听一下 請問 ...

Providing information about the identification of Chinese characters 25.7 25.5 Requesting repetition or clarification of spoken ...

BaSiC StrateGieS For CommUNiCatioN 25.11 List the components of the character in question 「三点水」的「清」 「三點水」的「清」 ‘sāndiǎn shuǐ’ d ...

Formal development of a topic 25.11 25.11.2 introducing further points To introduce additional points in a discussion or in writ ...

BaSiC StrateGieS For CommUNiCatioN 25.11 25.11.5 Giving examples To give examples, use these expressions to introduce your remar ...

26 Telecommunications and e-communications: telephones, the internet, and faxes Telecommunications and e-communications play a m ...

teleCommUNiCatioNS aNd e-CommUNiCatioNS 26.1 收短信 or 收短消息 shōu duǎnxìn shōu duǎn xiāoxi receive a text message 我收到了你的短信。 Wǒ shōud ...

telephone etiquette 26.4 26.2 Dialing a number and entering a number 拨电话号码/撥電話號碼 bō diànhuà hàomǎ dial a phone number 在你刚拨的电话号码前 ...

teleCommUNiCatioNS aNd e-CommUNiCatioNS 26.5 Increasingly, in the cities of China, the phrase used to answer a phone call is: 喂？ ...

Writing and reciting phone numbers and fax numbers 26.5 Sample numbers Phone, fax 6 5 2 7 – 3 3 7 8 liù wǔ èr qī sān sān qī bā C ...

27 negating information 27.1 Negation of verbs and verb phrases The words that are used to negate verbs and verb phrases in Mand ...

Negation of verbs and verb phrases 27.1 negated manner adverbial phrases 他考得不好。 Tā kǎo de bù hǎo. He didn’t do well on the tes ...

NeGatiNG iNFormatioN 27.3 27.2 The relative order of negation and adverbs Here are some general rules for the relative order of ...

不 bù in resultative and directional verbs 27.4 根本 gēnběn (+ negation) ‘absolutely not’ 那样的话根本没有道理。 那樣的話根本沒有道理。 Nà yàng de huà gē ...