Basic Grammar
Although Chinese people use characters, they communicate with sentences.The sentence structrue is not simple. Sentences are made up of words while words are made up of characters. Like in English, these words are divided into nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.; while sentences are divided into declarative sentences, interrogative sentences, imperative sentences, and so on. But there are many differences between English and Chinese.

Chinese grammar may be the easiest to learn as there are no tenses and very few word order changes. To express the future or the past, one adds the word "past" in front of the verb, instead of changing the tense of the verb. Also, in most sentences, word order do not change.

Example 1

To say somebody went somewhere, (notice no tense change, no special form for third person singular)

  • sb.+"go(no tense change, and not "goes")"+"the place" (Chinese)
  • sb.+"went" (tense change)+"the place" (English)

Example 2

To ask where somebody went, (notice no word order/tense change)

  • sb.+"go"+"where"+"?" (Chinese)
  • "where"+"did"+sb."go" (English)
Generally speaking, the main component of a sentence takes the form: "subject(noun or pronoun)"+"predicate(verb)"+"object(noun or pronoun).

There is no link verb or auxiliary. .

Example 3

To ask whether somebody likes something, (notice no auxiliary/link verb)

  • sb.+"like"+sth.+"?"(Chinese)
  • "Does"+sb.+"like"+sth.(English)
As you see in the above example, to ask a question, one does not change any word order, add an auxiliary/link verb. One simply changes to an upward tone.

In oral Chinese, sentence structure may not be so simple as there are many post-sentence words that are often heard (note "OFTEN" not "ALWAYS". These words include "ma", "me", "le", "ne", "ya", etc..

Example 4

Use of "ma" -- at then end of interrogation

  • ni hao ma? (How are you? Notice that "ma" is not stressed but barely "mentioned") -- Click to hear its pronunciation

Example 5

Use of "ba" -- at then end of inperative sentence

  • zou ba (Let's Go.) -- Click to hear its pronunciation
The above are the basic rules of Chinese grammar. It may be easy, or may be hard, as it is learned by experience and feeling rather than strict rules. Hopefully this is a useful lesson that will help you to understand Chinese a bit.

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