Tag Archives: grammar
The Bǎ Construction (把) Posted by Stephen on Nov 20, 2011
With few prepositions in the Chinese language, adding depth to your conversations is often difficult for non-native speakers. That’s why learning the bǎ construction (把) is a helpful way to improve your sentence formation and add grammatical complexity to your conversations. Instead of sticking to basic (and often boring) Subject-Verb-Object sentence patterns, the ba construction gives native…
Some More Review Posted by sasha on Sep 14, 2010
The new semester (学期 – xué qí) has started for schools here in Beijing, and that means this teacher is very busy (很忙 – hěn máng). I’ll be running all over this city, as I’m working at a Korean high school and two Chinese middle schools, in addition to private lessons. This back to school…
“Welcome to take Beijing Taxi”, pt 2: Directions Posted by Stephen on Apr 26, 2010
Once you get past simply telling the cabbie the name of the location, you can now move onto basic directions and driving commands. Not only does it help you get a feel for the city, but it keeps you practicing Chinese and will often lead to further discussion with your 司机 (driver). For Example: 一直走。西三环路出口以后，右拐。去到第一个路口，左转。往到北四环路，掉头。我的房屋在饭馆在小路的后面。再这儿，停车。…
Getting Grammatical (语法）Who, What, When, Where Posted by Stephen on Apr 15, 2010
Many followers of this Blog have requested some basic grammar 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) *Note Why is not among this list, because it is a little more complicated in terms of grammar* Let’s…