When you’re learning Chinese and encounter words
like “忘” and “忘記”
“桌” and “桌子”
“美” and “美麗”
Have you ever wondered
why these words seem to express the same meaning
but for some reason native speakers will
sometimes choose to use one over the other?
In this video, we’re going to talk about
why there are so many Chinese words that
have both one-syllable and two-syllable versions of the same word
and how native Chinese speakers choose which one to use
哈囉，大家好！ 哈啰，大家好！
I’m Grace from Grace Mandarin Chinese
Research has shown that
almost 70% of words in Chinese have flexible lengths
which means they can adjust their word length like this:
Now you see the word “忘”, which means “forget”
sometimes it can show up as “忘” in a sentence
and sometimes it shows up as “忘記”
but both express the same meaning “forget”
This is what “flexible length” means
So nearly 70% of Chinese words can
sometimes take on the form of a one-syllable word
and at other times take the form of a two-syllable word
Crazy, right?
And research also shows that most of these flexible-length words
are nouns, verbs and adjectives
so what we’ll talk about today mainly affects these three categories
To understand why there are so many words with flexible lengths in Chinese
we need to first understand how the Chinese language developed
In ancient times, the majority of words in the old Chinese language
were one-syllable words
like 天、地、人、火、水, etc.
and the phonetic system of the old Chinese language
was way more complicated than it is now
So people could distinguish separate meanings by different sounds
However, the advancement of society
led to the existence of new things and complex thoughts
so there was a need to create new words for naming them
Okay, we don’t have enough words to express ourselves
what should we do?
Yeah, we need to find a way to create new words in our language…
Yeah, but I really like one-syllable words
I’m used to that
let’s try to stick to it.
So our ancestors started to create new words
by increasing homophones 同音字,
which means that they used the same sound
to represent different meanings,
like how in English you use the sound /swiːt/
for both the words “sweet” and “suite”,
they’re homophones 同音字
In that way, they can stick to using one-syllable words.
They also tried extending the meaning of a word to indicate more.
However, here is the problem…
Ok, let’s learn some Chinese today!
Omg... how can one sound have so many different meanings!
欸，我要shí。(Hey, I want shí)
She wants what?
Time?
Food?
Stone?
So you can see it’s really hard to communicate
if you have too many homophones in a language.
To solve this problem,
two-syllable words started being created and used,
so now in modern Chinese,
we have more two-syllable words than we have one-syllable words
But now you might wonder –
since we have two-syllable words already,
why don't we just get rid of all the one-syllable words?
The reason we’re still using them is because
they still have unique functions in the language
And now we’re going to talk about that!
Everyone has synonyms in their own language,
like in English, “so” and “therefore” express similar meanings
but they’re used differently to some extent.
In Chinese, these synonyms are the same,
they can exist in the language system at the same time
indicating that they may be used differently in some way.
Now I'm going to talk about 4 different factors that
decide whether people choose one-syllable or two-syllable words.
But keep in mind that what I’m going to talk about is
just a tendency and not an absolute rule
so you still may find exceptions,
but understanding these concepts will
give you a general sense of their differences
and how to choose between the two
The first factor is
“Meanings”
Generally speaking, the meanings of one-syllable words
tend to be more vague and general,
while the meanings and connotations of two-syllable words
tend to be more clear and specific. For example,
“包” means “bag”
and “書包” means “bookbag”
which is a specific kind of bag
Another example,
“搬” is “to move (something)”, and “搬家” is “to move (places)”
If you say “我明天要搬了” to someone without any context,
they might not know what you’re going to move,
but if you say “我明天要搬家了” then it’s clear that
you’re going to move to another house or residence.
So that’s a difference between one and two-syllable words.
The next one is
“Different Grammar Usage”
Some one-syllable and two-syllable words can
be used differently grammatically.
For example, many one-syllable verbs in Chinese
tend to have an object, particle
or complement attached to them, for instance,
To say “to learn”, you can say “學” or “學習”
When you want to add some particles or complements to the verb,
the one-syllable verb “學” is a better choice, for example,
However, saying “我學習過鋼琴”
or “我學習得很快” doesn’t sound as natural.
But compared to one-syllable verbs,
two-syllable verbs have more freedom in a sentence,
in addition to being a verb,
they can often be a noun and used as the subject or object.
For instance,
But it’s incorrect to use 學 in these sentences.
So now you know, another possible difference
between one-syllable and two-syllable words is that
their grammar function could be different.
The third factor that influences our choice is
"Style: Formal vs. Informal"
In general, one-syllable words are more often used in speaking,
and two-syllable words are more frequently used in writing,
for example, 怕 and 害怕 both mean “to be afraid”
but 怕 is more often used in speaking
and “害怕” is more often used in writing.
However, remember that this is just a general rule of thumb
and not some exact, strict rule to follow.
Another example of style is that,
in news titles, there is usually a word limit so the reporters may
often choose to use one-syllable words over two-syllable words
so long as the intended meaning can be conveyed clearly.
Now let’s take a look at the final factor,
which is also the most tricky one to grasp:
“The rhythm of Chinese”
In Chinese, people prefer the combination
of two syllables and four syllables,
so you can see in ancient Chinese poems,
they use four syllables as a unit.
so we prefer the word combinations of “1 syllable + 1 syllable”
or “2 syllables + 2 syllables”. Here is an example,
To say “appreciate, enjoy (beauty)”,
we can say either “欣賞” or “賞”
And to say “scenery”, we can say either “風景” or “景”
If we want to combine them and say “to enjoy the scenery”,
you can either say “賞景” or “欣賞風景”
but it’s not as natural to say “欣賞景” or “賞風景”
So just keep in mind that the rhythm of Chinese is also
a factor in choosing between one-syllable words or two-syllable words.
Alright! So now you know
why there are so many one-syllable and two-syllable words that
can express the same meanings in Chinese.
To sum up, both one-syllable words and two-syllable words
have different roles in our communication,
so we keep both of them in our language system.
When you’re learning this kind of word,
just pay attention to how they’re used differently.
And the four factors I mentioned today are some ideas
to help you understand their differences.
OK, that’s all for today!
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And also if you’d like to learn some daily Mandarin expressions,
check out my Instagram @gracemandarin
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