As a Chinese teacher, over the years I’ve come to see that there are particular topics and language points that students seem to have a ‘mental block’ with, to the point now where I can usually predict in advance which particular content will prove to be a stumbling block with most students. In this post, I want to give you a quick checklist of some of those, so you can make sure that you are okay with them.
(1) Duration Expressions
This one often astounds me – it’s such a core sentence structure, yet even highly advanced students make a dog’s dinner of it. To recap:
- For action verbs:
subject + verb + object + verb + (了、过) + duration
- For action verbs (alternative):
subject + verb + (了、过) + duration + (的) + object
- For state verbs:
subject + verb + object + (已经) + (有) + duration + (了)
- Time spent NOT doing something:
subject + duration + 没(有) + verb + object + (了)
(2) 把-Structure
subject + 把 + object + verb + something extra
A lot of students get the above word order, but stumble on why they would ever think to use the 把-structure in the first place. So remember, the 把-structure shows that a change has been brought about in the object. There’s a dedicated post I’ve put up on 把, so be sure to check it out.
(3) Prepositions mostly being derived from verbs
- Prepositions go before a noun to show that noun’s relationship in some way to the subject of the sentence.
- Most prepositions in Chinese are either currently also used as verbs, or historically were verbs, and as such, many students find it hard to divorce their use as verbs from their use as prepositions.
- The main repeat offender here is 给; whenever I ask students what 给 means in sentences like ‘我给你买了礼物’, ‘我给你找了’, ‘我过一会儿给你打电话’, they always say ‘give’. NO! It means ‘give’ as a verb, but as a preposition, it means ‘for, on behalf of’.
(4) 是…的
This one is a bit like the 把-structure – students get the word order pattern, but just don’t know why they would think to use it at a particular point in a conversation. So, remember, 是…的 is used to express elaboration upon the circumstances of an action already just mentioned in the conversation. Because textbook resources generally put the focus upon the ‘elaboration on the circumstances’ part of the description, students often miss the crucial part about when to use 是…的 being ‘when referring to an action already just mentioned in the conversation’.
(5) 了
Who can blame you? When my thesis is done, I’ll tell you more about this one, as it’s one of my main research areas.
(6) Resultative verb complements (RVCs)
A huge amount of verbal nuance and shades of meaning are conveyed in Chinese by a special class of words called ‘resultative verb complements’ (RVC) [often also called simply ‘result complements’ (RC)].
Because this class of words is so interesting and there’s a fair bit to say about them, I’ve decided to put up a separate post dedicated to this topic. It will be following this post very, very shortly, so look out for it!
(7) Directional complement object position
When you have 来 or 去 coming after a verb as a directional complement (I’ll also be talking about this in the dedicated RVC post following this very soon), it is incorrect to put the 来 or 去 before the object. It must come AFTER the object
e.g. 进房子来 NOT **进来房子
e.g. 回家去 NOT **回去家
(8) Comparatives
I think this is not a Chinese-specific mental block, but is something people have when learning another language in general. Comparatives are just a bit hard to juggle!
- It’s possible, however, that Chinese comparatives throw people off a bit more due to the fact that the things being compared are both mentioned first before the axis of comparison is mentioned at the end.
- One thing I want you to think of is that the rules for expressing comparatives in Chinese are no different from general word order rules. Actually, the ‘比 + noun’ part of the sentence is a prepositional phrase – just like ‘给 + noun’ or ‘在 + noun’. In other words, a sentence like ‘我比你高’ literally means ‘I, in comparison to you, am tall’. So let’s recap the sentence patterns for comparatives:
(i) ‘More than’:
Subject + 比 ‘compared to’ + noun + adjective
There’s a bit of fiddlyness with the ‘adjective’ part; usually, we tell you that you must add a degree adverb like 很 when using an adjective in Chinese. However, comparatives are an exception to this and you should just leave the adjective hanging by itself (like most things in language, it’s not actually an exception and has a deeper-rooted consistency that is not immediately apparent to students. For those interested, the relevant fact here is that Chinese adjectives are implicitly comparative by default, unless ‘neutralised’ by some sort of degree marker like 很 – this also explains why we have to include 很 a lot of the time with adjectives, even when we are not really expressing its full meaning of ‘very’).
There are, however, SOME ways to indicate adjectival degree with comparatives. Firstly, there are a small number of degree adverbs that can be used:
我比你高。
**我比你很高。
**我比你非常高。
我比你还高。
我比你还要高。
我比你更高。
There are also a small set of degree suffixes that can be used in comparatives e.g.:
我比你高一点(儿)。
我比你高得多。
我比你高多了。
(ii) ‘Less than’:
Subject + 没有+ noun + (那么、这么) + adjective
[literally: ‘A does not have the (as) adjective (as that/this)-ness of noun.’]
(iii) Equality / similarity:
Subject + 跟、和、与、像 [i.e. some sort of ‘and’ word] + noun + 一样 + adjective
[literally: ‘A and B are equally adjective.’]
(9) Position words
Position words like ‘上面’ ‘on top of’, ‘前面’ ‘in front of’ etc. are often confusing to learners.
At first glance, these words would appear to be fairly straightforward, universal concepts. The issue, however, comes with the fact that whereas words like ‘on’, ‘under’, ‘behind’ etc. are prepositions (words that show a relationship) in English, in Chinese they are simply just NOUNS.
What that means is that whereas in English we would say ‘The cat is under the table.’, in Chinese, we have to use the position word ‘under(neath)’ as a noun and combine it with the table to make something like ‘the underneath of the table’. This is actually why we often have a 的 between the noun and the position word – there is a possessive relation of sorts being formed here. So, in Chinese we should say ‘猫在桌子（的）下面。’.
(10) 来 and 去 used as ‘dummy verbs’
Blame it on the textbooks again: there are a couple of uses of the very common movement verbs 来 and 去 that are seldom written about and explained, and as per usual, it’s the poor students who feel the burden of not understanding (when in fact, they’ve never been taught in the first place).
- 来 and 去 can be used as auxiliary verbs (verbs that go before another, main verb) to indicate reason, cause or utility (often used with preposition 用 ‘using’). For instance:
e.g. 用你的天真来说服他。 ‘Use your innocence to convince him.’
e.g. 用“了”来造句。 ‘Make a sentence using ‘了’.’
e.g. 我想买巧克力来做蛋糕。 ‘I want to buy some chocolate to make a cake.’
e.g. 想办法来解决这个问题。 ‘Think of a solution to (solve) this problem.’
e.g. 用科学分析去证明事实。 ‘Use scientific analysis to prove the truth.’
e.g. 他回家去探望父母了。 ‘He went back home to visit his parents.’
- Similarly, they can be used to indicate who will take charge of a task:
e.g. 这件事我来做吧。 ‘I’ll do/handle this task.’ [note, there is no actual
sense here of the speaker moving to where the listener is in order to do the task.]
e.g. 别管他了，让他自己去思考。 ‘Don’t both him anymore, just let him
(go and) think on it.’ [note, again, there is no sense meant of ‘他’ actually going somewhere to do the thinking.]
- 来 can be used to show encouragement or suggestion, such as:
e.g. 我来试试。 ‘I’ll give it a try.’ [and NOT ‘I’m going to come over and do
it.’]
e.g. 你来做吧。 ‘You do it.’ [and NOT necessarily ‘You come here and do
it.’
e.g. 你来说两句吧。 ‘Say a few words about this.’
e.g. 大家来想办法。 ‘Let’s all think of a solution.’
- In a similar way, 来 can also be used as what we might call ‘pro-form verbs’; that is, as very generic verbs with bleached meaning, similar to how we use ‘do’ as an all-purpose action verb in English. For example:
e.g. 我累了，你来吧。 ‘I’m too tired. Come on, you do it.’ [and NOT ‘Come here.’]
e.g. 再来一遍！ ‘Do it again!’ [NOT ‘Come again.’]
Alright, that’s it! 你们来读一下吧！~
中文秘诀 | The Secret of Chinese 