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Mandarin Chinese phrases, by meaning
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Common questions about Mandarin Chinese
What does this Mandarin page cover?
Twenty-two functional categories with Mandarin examples: aspect (了 for completion, 过 for experiential, 着 for durative, 在 for progressive), modality (能 and 会 for ability, 要 for want, 应该 for should, 必须 for must), negation (不 for general, 没 for past or perfective), questions (the 吗 particle, the A-not-A pattern, content questions with 谁/什么/哪/什么时候), the 把 and 被 constructions, comparison with 比, and 16 others. All glossed.
How does Mandarin mark time without verb tenses?
Through aspect particles plus context. 我吃饭 'I eat (rice)' is unmarked. 我吃了饭 marks completion ('I ate'). 我吃过饭 marks experience ('I have eaten / I've had the experience of eating'). 我在吃饭 marks ongoing action ('I am eating'). Tense per se is left to time words like 昨天, 今天, 明天 — the verb stays constant.
Why do measure words appear between numbers and nouns?
Because in Mandarin you don't quantify a noun directly — you quantify a unit of it. 一本书 'one volume-of book', 一只猫 'one classifier-for-animals cat', 一杯水 'one cup of water'. Every noun has a default measure word; the right choice carries semantic information about what kind of thing you're counting. The general-purpose 个 covers a lot but isn't always natural.
What does the 把 construction do?
把 fronts a definite, affected object before the verb so the sentence can clearly describe what was done to it. 我把书放在桌子上 'I put the book on the table' — the book moves into focus, and the verb gets a clear endpoint or result. 把 sentences usually come with a result complement (放在, 吃了, 看完). 我把书 alone is ungrammatical; the verb has to do something to it.
Is this Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) or another variety?
Standard Mandarin / Putonghua / 普通话, the Beijing-based variety used in education, broadcasting, and business across mainland China, and (with minor differences) the basis of Taiwan's Guoyu and Singapore's Huayu. Other Sinitic languages (Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, Min) have their own pages; this one stays in standard Mandarin written in simplified characters with pinyin.
Sources for Mandarin Chinese
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Huang, C.-T. James, Y.-H. Audrey Li & Yafei Li (2009). The Syntax of Chinese. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Syntax Guides). — Comprehensive formal syntax of Mandarin. [via static/grammar-library/cmn/huang-li-li-2009-syntax-of-chinese.pdf]
- Yip, Po-Ching & Rimmington, Don (2004). Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge. — Broad coverage, well-organized for reference. [via static/grammar-library/cmn/yip-rimmington-2004-chinese-comprehensive-grammar.pdf, 2003 ed.]
- Li, Charles N. & Thompson, Sandra A. (1981). Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. University of California Press. — Foundational English-language functional grammar; authoritative for core syntax and pragmatics. [via static/grammar-library/cmn/li-thompson-1989-mandarin-functional-grammar.pdf, 1989 reprint]