Chinese convesation tag: Grammar

Tag: Grammar

These conversation post have all been tagged with " Grammar"

Chinese dictionary recommendation?

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I've never entered a post in this manner before. Not sure where it will go...

Can anyone out there recommend a good Chinese-English / English-Chinese dictionary?

Also, are there any good books for learning Chinese grammar that anyone has come across?

Thanks for any suggestions.

-jim

posted by jim_parker September 15, 2008

A question about hao

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Hi C-poddies,

Sorry if this question has been asked elsewhere on the forum, I'm sure it's been covered, but could someone please explain the difference between when you use:

hao, hao a, hao ba, hao le and hao de.

Listening to C-Pod and when I've been out at Chinese restaurants, I hear a variety of these at different times. Can you use whichever one you want, or does it depend on the context?

posted by silentnoise October 6, 2008

Let's Make the Grammar Guide Wiki Based!

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Today, while studying for the HSK, I was thinking that a good way to memorize the numerous Chinese grammar rules would be to create a notebook of them. Writing things down always helps me to retain knowledge. While I'm sure such a task would help me get a firmer understanding of Chinese grammar I'm not writing a book on grammar so such a large task seems a little much.

But then it hit me: why doesn't Cpod turn its Grammar guide into a wiki based resource? I mean, no offense to the Cpod team, the guide hasn't done much since it began (which was a slow process to begin with). No doubt you all have a lot on your plate and that's why the grammar guide hasn't progressed that fast. So why not let the Cpod community pick up the slack?

While the Cpod staff would probably have to give some structure to the guide, maybe making pages for items that should be included and such, but the bulk could be written by the community. Grammar explanations and examples would blossom on Cpod if given a chance to grow, which would in turn help make the guide a usable resource for more advanced learners. No doubt if the grammar guide was made more wiki based then its development would be much faster than if it was merely the Cpod staff writing it. While the Cpod site is very user oriented I still feel that there is room to grow with user based content. The grammar guide would be an excellent place to try such ideas.

What do you think?

posted by glosoli December 6, 2008

Begginer Corrections Please!

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Dear all,

I'm hoping you may be able to help by correcting these two texts I've written - there are some constructions I'm not sure I've used correctly. The first is meant to be a letter of invitation, though I'm not sure quite how to set out a letter to a friend. They're both fictional though and a lot of the sentences are just to demonstrate usage of a grammar structure.

Thanks in advance for any feedback and fixes you can offer!!

亲爱的 ~~，

你好吗?

请你参加五月三十日的生日聚会在中国饭店. 那天是我爸爸的生日. 他是五十三岁. 我家和朋友参加. 我们吃中饭也蛋糕. 我们从晚上八点半吃晚饭, 然后我们喝酒也听音乐.

你的朋友,
~~~

__________________________

我跟爸爸,妈妈住在~~~. 我家有四口人. 我家有爸爸,妈妈,姐姐和我,还有两只狗. 狗又可爱又大. 我爸爸是一声,也我妈妈不做工作. 我爸爸忙是忙,但很高兴. 我的房子离大学远. 我在曼彻斯特大学学习日语和汉语.

我每天六点半起床, 也我跟爸爸骑车去曼彻斯特. 我差一刻八点到大学. 从八点到九点我复习日语,然后我有日语的课. 日语太难了! 早上的课后我跟同学吃午饭. 大学的饭不好吃. 下午我学习或汉语或日语. 我三点半下课. 我跟同学一起去咖啡馆. 到四点半我们说日语. 五点我爸爸开车送我回家. 晚上我吃晚饭, 也复习汉语还是看电视.十一点我睡觉.

我的爱好是学习外语. 我会说法语,日语,西语和一点儿汉语. 汉语难是难,但很有意思.

在曼彻斯特有多咖啡馆也博物馆. 每周我去看电影,还去买东西. 曼彻斯特极好了!

posted by nephand May 6, 2009

I need help creating/editing sentences

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In my effort to study mandarin better, I wrote out some sentences. These sentences try to use some of the ideas we learned in Qing Wen (shi4...de, ...bi3..., you3 shen2me..., lian2....dou1 as well as the travel lessons. I know some of them are totally wrong, but I would greatly appreciate any kind of help in correcting what is wrong with what I wrote. Especially helpful is knowing why it's wrong. Forgive me, but I don't really know characters, and my pinyin is not that great, but any help is appreciated.

I'm going to complain.

Wo3 shi4 yao4 qu4 tou2su4 de.

When did you file a compliant?

Ni3 shi4 shen2me shi2hou4 tou2su4 de?

I usually don't set up these kinds of meetings. They're too important.

Wo3 yi1ban4 bu4 an1pai2 zhe4 zhong3 hui. Ta1men2 shi4 tai2 zhong3 yao4 de.

This road is under construction.

Zhe4 tiao2 lu4 shi4 zai4 xiu1 de.

No one can afford to speak irresponsibly.

Mei2 you3 ren2 bu4 yao4 luan4shuo1 de qi3

posted by pretzellogic June 29, 2009

Let's discuss 在, 着, 再 and 又

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This is two questions, but I feel they're a bit related.

1: What is the difference between "她在看电视" and "她看着电视"? I've learned that both those contructions would mean "-ing", so is there any difference between using '在' and '着'?

2: Same question, but with '再' and '又'. What's the difference between "她再看电视" and "她又看电视"?

The reason I feel the two questions are related is because you can't actually hear the difference between the first sentences in eaxh question. Do you simply avoid confusion by using '着' and '又' instead of '在' and '再' in cases where context is ambiguous? And when you need to say "She's watching TV again", I'm guessing you wouldn't say "她再在看电视", but rather "她又在看电视" or "她再看着电视", or even "她又看着电视".

I'm sure I've misunderstood the usage of some of these characters. Please do point that out. And any pointers on the usage of any of these four characters in their "-ing" and "again" functions would be appreciated.

posted by simonpettersson October 27, 2009

Qing Wen Deathmatch

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Has anyone ever encountered a situation where a sentence pattern didn't unfold the way you thought, and it was due to the conflict between two or more sentence patterns? I was thinking I understood "qilái" sort of, but what if you added "bǐ"? For example:

It's really hard to fly an airplane

fēijī fēi qìlái hén nán

It's hard to ride a bike

zìxíngchē zuò qìlái hén nán

It's hard to ride a bike, but even harder to fly an airplane.

zìxíngchē zuò qìlái hén nán bǐ fēijī fēi qìlái hén nán

No doubt there's plenty wrong with my example, but hopefully, the point is illustrated enough.

I guess i'm not quite clear when, as a general set of grammar rules, when certain sentence patterns take precedent.

Yes, the answer is the usual "it depends" and "it depends on the context of what you're trying to say", but I guess I was wondering about specific examples of when this occurs, or really more interestingly, what are the exceptions to the rules. Maybe there should be a series of Qing Wens to explain what happens when sentence patterns collide, and which sentence pattern takes precedent over another and when.

posted by pretzellogic November 11, 2009

呢 not always a question?!

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I was hoping someone could give me a few tips or examples on how to use 呢 when it's not a question particle, such as in 还没呢。 or (别麻烦他。) 他没吃饭呢。

What situations do you use this form of 呢 in?

谢谢！

posted by febreeze44 December 2, 2009