Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar

The chIneSe wrITIng SySTeM: An OvervIew 3.3 Here are examples of characters with phonetics. As you can see, the pronunciation of ...

The traditional classification of characters 3.3 3.3.2 Ideographs 指事 zhH shì Ideographs represent abstract meanings, often havin ...

The chIneSe wrITIng SySTeM: An OvervIew 3.4 3.4 character stroke order: 笔顺/筆順 bHshùn 3.4.1 basic rules of stroke order Each Chin ...

4 Phrase order in the Mandarin sentence 4.1 Basic phrase order The basic order of the Mandarin sentence is topic + subject + pre ...

PhrASe Order In The MAndArIn SenTence 4.5 4.3 The position of prepositional phrases Prepositional phrases generally occur right ...

The position of duration phrases 4.9 Within the ‘time when’ phrase, the order of constituents is from the largest block of time ...

PhrASe Order In The MAndArIn SenTence 4.11 我昨天晚上睡了八个钟头。 我昨天晚上睡了八個鐘頭。 Wǒ zuótiān wǎnshang shuì le bā gè zhōngtóu. I yesterday eve ...

The position of aspect particles 4.12 4.12 The position of aspect particles Mandarin indicates the aspect of an event; that is, ...

5 nouns In Mandarin, the same form of the noun is used in subject and object position. Subject Object 猫吃鱼。 我养猫。 貓吃魚。 我養貓。 Māo ch ...

Pronouns 5.2 When a specifier 这/這 zhè, zhèi ‘this/these,’ 那 nà, nèi ‘that/those,’ or the question specifier 哪 nǎ, něi ‘which’ mo ...

nOunS 5.2 Singular Plural First person 我 wǒ 我们/我們 wǒmen I/me we/us (exclusive or neutral) 咱们/咱們 zánmen we (inclusive) Second per ...

Pronouns 5.2 5.2.2 The inclusive pronoun 咱们/咱們 zánmen ‘we’ The inclusive pronoun 咱们/咱們 zánmen ‘we’ is used in northern dialects ...

nOunS 5.3 Here is a table showing the Mandarin equivalent of English possessive pronouns. When pronoun + 的 de is followed by a n ...

Proper nouns 5.3 Proper nouns, like pronouns, typically occur without additional modification. As is the case with pronouns, Man ...

6 numbers 6.1 Mandarin numbers 0–99 6.1.1 numbers 0–10 0 ○ or 零 líng 1 一 yī 6 六 liù 2 二 èr, 两/兩 liǎng 7 七 qī 3 三 sān 8 八 bā 4 四 ...

number 100 and higher 6.2 6.1.2 numbers 11–19 The numbers 11–19 consist of the number 10 [十 shí] followed by the numbers 1 [一 yī ...

nuMberS 6.2 6.2.3 ‘zero’ as a placeholder The word ○/零 líng may be used when the ‘hundreds’ place or the ‘tens’ place is empty, ...

Ordinal numbers 6.4 亿/億 万/萬 千 百 十 yì wàn qiān bǎi shí 2,225,250 两百二十二万 五千 二百 五十 兩百二十二萬 wǔqiān èrbǎi wǔshí liǎngbǎi èrshí’èr wàn ...

nuMberS 6.5 6.5 estimates and approximations To indicate that a quantity is ‘more or less’ the stated number, use the phrase 左右 ...

Fractions, percentages, decimals, half, and multiples 6.6 To indicate the actual number is more than the stated number, use 多 du ...