哈囉，大家好！ 哈啰，大家好！
I’m Grace!
In today’s video
I’m going to talk about
the top 3 Chinese grammar mistakes that my students make
Let’s see if you’re also making the same mistakes
and let’s learn how to avoid them
Most of my students’ native language is English
so some of the mistakes I will mention today
are related to English grammar
Like the first one:
“The misuse of 如果 (if)”
You may have learned that 如果 is a conjunction
used in conditional sentences
like
But I often hear the following incorrect sentences:
Now let’s take a look at the first sentence
In English
even though you use “if” in the sentence
this “if” is used to form an indirect yes-no question
and not to talk about a condition
so in Chinese, we don’t use 如果
we use the “A not A” structure to form an indirect yes-no question
Here the A could be a verb or an auxiliary verb
depending on the sentence
so instead of saying 我不知道如果我明天有空
the correct version is 我不知道我明天有沒有空
Okay, your turn!
Try to correct this one:
Yes, it should be 老師問你能不能跟我們去
Now try to correct this one:
How would you say this correctly?
Yes, it is 他不知道我是不是學生
Okay now that you’ve got all of them right!
Let’s move on to the next common mistake:
“The misuse of 是”
You may have seen the translation of 是 is “to be”,
so many Chinese learners say something like
In Chinese
we don’t usually use an adjective with 是
instead
we often use adjectives with degree adverbs
So if you want to say “He is smart” instead of saying 他是聰明
you can say 他很聰明
lit. He very smart
Now it’s your turn
how would you correct this sentence:
Yes
you can say 她很漂亮
you can even say 她超漂亮
You can use any degree adverb you prefer
If you’d like to learn more about degree adverbs
here is a video where I talk about alternatives for 很
so you can express yourself in a variety of different ways
Okay now let’s try to correct this one
That’s right! you can say 我哥哥很高
However
you might feel confused
when you hear native Chinese speakers say sentences like
In this case
“是” is used to agree with others
so there should be context given
Here “是” is used to agree with the other person
However, there is usually a “BUT” after it
Here’s another example
Okay now you know that we do have the structure
“S + 是 + adj.”
but this is used to agree with others
before adding a contrasting comment
So if you use this structure without any context
it would sound kind of weird
Okay now let’s move on to the third mistake:
“The misuse of 不可以”
可以 (can) has many different usages
Like when something can be achieved without any problem
you can use 可以, for instance
可以 can also be used to talk about
the usage of something
like
Other than that, 可以 can be used to
express that someone has permission to do something
For example
However, here is the problem
the negation of 可以 is 不可以
and 不可以 is used to express that something is not allowed
For example
So 如果你的老師問你可不可以參加明天的活動
if your teacher asks you if you can join tomorrow’s event
and you say
then that means “I’m not allowed to join tomorrow’s event”
and that probably not what you want to express
So if you can’t do something because of
some personal reasons or rules
then you can use “不能”
For instance
if you can’t join tomorrow’s event
because you have an exam the following day
then you can say
That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard
If you can’t do something
because you don’t know how to do it
or don’t have the right skills
then you can use “不會”.
For instance
However
if you have the intention to
or you tried doing something
but was unable to get a certain result
then you can use the structure “V + 不 + complement”.
For example
If you say 我不能吃這些菜
then that means
there’s another reason you can’t have the food
it might be that you’re allergic to the food or something else
It’s a bit complicated
so let’s do a quick recap for this part:
When you want to negate 可以
remember that it’s not always 不可以
It depends on the meaning you want to express
Let’s see these four sentences
they have different negation words
and therefore express different meanings
他不可以說話
He is not allowed to talk
他不能說話
He can’t speak
(due to some personal reason or rule)
他不會說話
He doesn’t know how to speak
他說不了話
He can’t speak
(even if he wanted to)
Alright, that’s all for today’s video!
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check out my Instagram @gracemandarin
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