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Lesson
4, Major Sentence PatternsThe basic word order in Chinese is S-Adverbial-V-Obj or S-Adverbial-Adjective. Adjectives function similarly to verbs, since they include the sense of "to be" (for example, 忙 means "to be busy"). "Time-when" expressions tell when an action occurred, and are considered adverbials. They usually go between the subject and verb, but may also be put at the head of the sentence before the subject for emphasis. The opposite of 常常 is 不常. Multiple adverbials may be used in a sentence, and they should be used in a fixed order depending on the meaning. Please note the word order:
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Adverbial |
or Adjective |
English |
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He's eating Chinese food today. |
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週末常常 |
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I often see movies on the weekend. |
| 老王的哥哥 | 明天不 | 去唱歌。 | Old Wang's elder brother isn't going out to sing tomorrow. |
| 高小姐 | 五點鐘也不 | 吃飯。 | Miss Gao isn't eating at 5:00, either. |
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Teacher Gao is busy right now. |
| 張醫生 | 不常 | 看電視。 | Dr. Zhang doesn't often watch TV. |
| 小白 | 下星期三晚上 | 去跳舞。 | Little Bai is going dancing Wednesday evening next week. |
| 這個電影 | 很 | 有意思。 | This movie is really interesting. |
| 他們 | 都沒 | 有照片。 | None of them has a photograph. |
| 我們 | 也都不太 | 老。 | None of us is too old, either! |
| 王朋和李友 | 都 | 是律師。 | Wang Peng and Li You are both lawyers. |
| 他們 | 不都 | 想去打球。 | Not all of them want to go play ball. |
| 他們 | 也不都 | 有妹妹。 | Not all of them have younger sisters, either. |
Lesson 4 introduces two verbs that are used in combination with other verbs to supplement the meaning. The first is 去 (see text p. 85), used when the action occurs away from the speaker. It may be translated as "to go (do something)." In Chinese, 去-Verb is used very frequently, even when "to go" is not required in English. For example: 我明天去打球 could be expressed in English as either "I will play ball tomorrow" or "I will go to play ball tomorrow."
The second is an auxiliary verb, 想, (sometimes called an "optative verb"). See text p. 86. It indicates the desire of the subject to do something. 喜歡 may also be used as an auxiliary verb meaning "to like (doing something)." Please note that 想 expresses desire to do something now or at a certain time, whereas 喜歡 simply indicates a general attitude but not a desire to perform that action now. 我想吃中國飯 means "I would like to eat Chinese food, (that is, I want to eat it now)" while 我喜歡吃中國飯 means "I like eating Chinese food generally, (but I don't necessarily want to eat it now)."
For negative sentences and affirmative-negative questions, perform the operation on the first verb in the series. Adverbials such as 都, 很, 常常 may be used in statements, where they are attached to the first verb, but only adverbials of time may be used in affirmative-negative questions. If you want to ask a question including an adverbial, use the 嗎 pattern. If you use both 去 and 想 in the same sentence, 想 goes first. Here are the basic patterns:
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(and time-word) |
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English |
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We will go to see a movie. |
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不去 |
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I will not go dancing in the evening. |
| 小張的爸爸明天 | 去不去 | 吃美國飯? | Will Little Zhang's Dad go to eat American food tomorrow? |
| 現在我 | 想 | 吃中國飯。 | I want to eat Chinese food now. |
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Mr. Bai doesn't want to study Chinese. |
| 你 | 想不想 | 學英文? | Do you want to study English? |
| 李太太 | 也想 | 去跳舞。 | Mrs. Li also wants to go dancing. |
| 高老師 | 喜歡 | 打網球。 | Teacher Gao likes to play tennis. |
| 他們 | 也都喜歡 | 打球。 | They all like to play ball, too. |
| 他媽媽 | 不喜歡 | 吃英國飯。 | His mother doesn't like to eat English food. |
| 王醫生 | 喜歡不喜歡 | 聽外國音樂? | Does Dr. Wang like to listen to foreign music? |
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If you can't read the Chinese characters, install Microsoft traditional Chinese font, then set browser to view character set "Big 5 (traditional Chinese)."
This page
created by Mary Jacob 
