Nǐ hǎo, welcome back to yoyo chinese grammar. In our last lesson, we learned the chinese
golden rule, which tell us how to arrange different elements in a complicated chinese
sentence. Basically the word order should go like this: Subject, when the action takes
place, where the action takes place, how the action takes place and then the action. Now
let's do a few exercises. First, please re-arrange the word order of this sentence. I go to Los
Angeles by train every month. Feel free to pause the video to figure this out. Alright,
let's digest this sentence, here I is the subject, go to Los Angeles is the action,
which is the core of the sentence remember? We chinese are not straight forward, we always
beat around the bush first and then cut to the chase. We always put the core, the action at the
end of the sentence. And other decorative elements such as 'by train' which is how I
go to Los Angeles and every month, which is 'when' I go to Los Angeles before the action.
So according to the previous rule, Subject when where how and then the action. The correct
chinese sequence should be I every month by train go to Los Angeles. Please note there
that we don't have a element of 'where' in the sentence. Now you are probably saying
Come on Yangyang, who says there's no elements of where. Los Angeles is a place, a location,
Los Angeles is the element of where. Well, to answer this question, I have to repeat
what I just said, when refers to when the action takes place, and where refers to where
the action takes place. Here Los Angeles is not where the action ' to go' takes place,
Los Angeles is the destination of the action 'to go'. So this previous rule doesn't apply
here. Alright, going to Los Angeles should be seen as an action as a whole. Now let's
take a look at another sentence. I studied chinese for two hours yesterday. How do you
say it in chinese way? Well, the chinglish sentence should be I yesterday studied chinese
for two hours. Please note that for two hours is not when the action 'studied chinese' takes
place. It's the duration and how long the action lasts. So two hours shouldn't go before
the action, it should just stay after the action 'studied chinese'. Of course, the time
word yesterday is when the action takes place, so it should go before the action. Now I'm
gonna ask you a question, what if you have several time words at the same time in one
chinese sentence? Let's say, you have 5 o'clock, afternoon, tomorrow in one sentence. How would
you arrange them? Well, here's the rule. When you have different time words or location
words, the way to arrange them is moving the focus from big to small. So for time, the
sequence goes like this: Year, month, week, day, part of the day which can be morning
afternoon and evening, and the clock time. So here among these 3 words, 5 o'clock afternoon
and tomorrow. Tomorrow is the biggest so it goes first, afternoon is part of the day so
it goes second, and then it should be followed by 5 o'clock, only a point of time in the
afternoon. So to say I study with Lly at the library tomorrow at 5 in the afternoon. We
say, I tomorrow afternoon 5 o'clock, done with time. Now it comes to location, which
is at the library with Lly study. Get it? As for location, you will notice that chinese
address telescope into from country to city to street to building and to apartment. Hey
everything is consistent, you probably already know this but in chinese, our personal names
are ordered to start big with the family name and small with the personal name. So my full
name in chinese is Cheng Yangyang instead of Yangyang Cheng. Alright that's all for
this lesson, we are going to continue to talk about the chinese word order in our next lesson.
Zài jiàn.