Many followers of this Blog have requested some basic grammar or 语法 (yǔ fǎ) rules with explanation, so today lets focus on the basics of a sentence:

Who (谁 shéi)
What (什么 shénme)
When (什么时候 shénme shíhou)
Where (在哪儿 zàinǎr)

Let’s start with a basic sentence in English. Someone asks you what you’ve been up to lately and your response is: “Yesterday afternoon, I went to see a movie with my friends at a New York Cinema”.

Now in English, there are a variety of ways to rephrase this sentence, as you can move the subject, verb and object all throughout. Examples: ” I went to see a movie at New York Cinema, yesterday afternoon, with my friends” or “Yesterday, at a New York Cinema, my friends and I saw a movie” etc…

But in Chinese, the rules of grammar (thankfully) are much more fixed and simplistic, often following a prescribed order.

The basic sentence structure order is the following:

1) When (this includes sequentially, the Date, part of day [afternoon, everning, morning], and then time respectively), 2) Where (location), 3) Who (Subject), and 4) What (verb) or what occurred.

To give a Chinglish format: Yesterday afternoon at 7pm, in a New York Cinema, My friends and I, saw a movie.

Now for the Chinese: 昨天下午在纽约电影院上，我跟朋友们看电影.

1)When: 昨天下午

2)Where: 在纽约电影院上

3) Who: 我跟朋友们

4) What: 看电影

Here’s the pinyin: zuótiān xiàwǔ，zài niǔ yuē diànyǐng yuàn shang, wǒ gēn péngyoumén kàn diànyǐng

Here 昨天下午 is the when, 在纽约电影院上 is the where (在。。。上 is a pattern for at, in, on the premises/location), 我跟朋友们 is the who (subject) and lastly 看电影 is the what (verb). Chinese very often follows a basic Subject + verb + object construction, with most qualifiers preceding the subject + verb + object construction.

If you follow this order, you will be grammatically correct in your Chinese. However, I will note that there are some exceptions to the rule (such as the subject 我 can precede the when and where). If you are a beginner or intermediate Chinese learner, however, I recommend sticking to this pattern until you are fully comfortable with it. Please feel free to make your own sentences.