哈囉，大家好！ 哈啰，大家好！
I’m Grace
No matter whether you’re a beginner
or you’ve been learning Chinese for a while,
this video will give you
linguistic insights into the Chinese grammar system
that are going to help you start thinking in Chinese
and forming sentences like a native speaker
I’ve prepared a free PDF for you to take study notes
You can find it in the description below
If you find today’s video and the PDF helpful
and would like to support me in creating more content,
please check out my ko-fi page.
The link is also in the description
I really appreciate every bit of support and feedback from you
Alright
那話不多說，我們現在開始吧！ 那话不多说，我们现在开始吧！
The basic word order for Chinese is S + V + O,
Subject + Verb + Object
just like in English
For example,
This is a simple sentence
If you want to add more information to the sentence,
there is one thing you need to keep in mind
Chinese is a left-branching language, which means that
the most important elements like the noun, verb
or main clause come at the end
and the other elements used to modify them branch off on their left
in other words, we talk about details first
before telling you what we’re describing
The modifiers include adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases,
relative clauses, and dependent clauses
Let’s see some examples:
Now let’s see how to apply them in a sentence:
Here are the basic and most important elements:
Here are some details I’d like to add to the sentence
You can pause the video
and think about where to put these details
according to the left-branching rule
Details are on the left
which is in front of the important elements
OK, here is the answer:
The time is for telling when the action happens,
so we put this detail before the main verb
However, it can also be placed at the beginning of the sentence,
to express when the whole event happens.
And the relative clause
"之前教過我中文的 who has taught me Chinese before"
is the detail for the object "老師 teacher"
so we put it before 老師.
In English, where to put these details is
basically the opposite of that in Chinese,
so if you’re a native English speaker,
it takes some practice to get used to the new word order
So now you know that, in Chinese,
we like to let you know the details first
But sometimes those details are the main point
we want to talk about,
so they appear at the end of the sentence
For example,
If I want to say “this book is thick”,
the adjective “thick” is the point I want to express,
so in Chinese we say
很厚 appears at the end because it’s the point of the sentence.
So we have other common sentence structures
to emphasize different information
The first one is the one we talked about
Like
About Chinese adjectives,
you need to know that they are different from English ones,
Many of them can act like a verb
So they’re called “state verbs”
When using them,
you don’t have to add another verb in the sentence
So to say “She is beautiful”,
we wouldn’t say “她是美麗”, because 美麗 can act like a verb,
it means “to be beautiful” by itself
so the sentence wouldn’t be correct if you add another “是 to be”
However, even though you don’t have to add another verb,
when using Chinese adjectives in this sentence structure,
we need to know the degree of the adjective
For example, if it’s just one complete sentence,
you can’t just say “她美麗”,
because we want to know how beautiful she is,
is she “very beautiful”, “quite beautiful”
or even “not beautiful”,
in Chinese, we like to know the degree
And a common way to show the degree is to add an adverb
You can say “她很美麗 she is very beautiful” or
use an adverb of negation and say
“她不美麗 she is not beautiful”
Other examples like
Other than using degree adverbs,
you can also use comparisons to show the degree
The second structure is
For example,
The final one is
The complement is used to add more information to the verb
If the information is the point we want to express
or the result of the action,
then we’ll use this structure
For example,
If a teacher asks you whether you can see the blackboard clearly
You can reply:
We use this sentence structure because
“不清楚 not clearly” is the result of the action
and it’s also the main point you want to express,
so you can even drop part of the sentence, and just say “不清楚”
Another example:
If someone asks you:
The main point the person is asking is the time span,
so we put it at the end of the sentence:
You can even drop most of it
and just say the most important part “兩年”
Other examples like,
OK, after learning these concepts,
let’s do a quick recap:
To make sentences in Chinese,
remember that Chinese is a left-branching language,
which means that we talk about details first
before telling you what we’re describing
So we put modifiers before the thing we’re describing
However, to emphasize other details,
we have other common structures:
We use these structures because the adjectives,
the nouns and the complements are the main points
that we want to express here
If you’re interested in learning more about Chinese grammar,
I’d like to introduce you
to my friend Shuo’s online mini course:
For those of you who are not familiar with Shuo,
she’s the host of the channel ShuoshuoChinese
I love her videos not only because they are so fun to watch,
but I’m also fascinated by
how she can use simple words to explain complicated grammar
and how she shows the inner logic of the Chinese language
So I’m very happy to see her launch her first online course
which will definitely help students learn faster
It is a pdf mini-course designed for
upper beginners or intermediate level students
to revisit Chinese sentence structures
This course includes 18 grammar structures
which are ALL YOU NEED to build a clearer understanding
of the Chinese language system
Spend 2 to 4 weeks studying this course
and you will find yourself starting to think in Chinese
So make sure you check the link in the description below
to see more information about this course,
and don’t forget to apply my unique coupon code "GRACE20"
to get a 20% discount today!
Alright, that’s all for today!
如果你喜歡今天的影片， 如果你喜欢今天的影片，
記得幫我按讚、訂閱和分享喔！ 记得帮我按赞、订阅和分享喔！
And also if you want to learn some daily Mandarin expressions,
check out my Instagram @gracemandarin
那我們就下次見囉！掰掰！ 那我们就下次见啰！掰掰！ I’ll see you next time! Bye!