Learning Chinese: introduction to Chinese grammar

Chinese grammar is quite simple: no gender (masculine, feminine), no number (singular, plural), no conjugation. Words are all invariable. That is why word order matters enormously and follows, as we will see, a logical order (though often the reverse of ours). Context does the rest: it is what tells us, for example, whether we are talking about one thing or several.

The simple sentence in Mandarin Chinese

In Mandarin Chinese, the simple sentence is built on the pattern:

The adjectival verb

First surprise: 好 "to be well, to be good" is what we call an adjectival verb. The adjective "good" already carries the verb "to be" within it. So you must never add an auxiliary before a Chinese adjective.
These adjectival verbs (to be well, to be tired, to be happy...) have one peculiarity: in the affirmative, they imply a comparison. So 我好， Wǒ hǎo, is not a finished sentence. It would translate as "I am well, whereas..." ("you are not well", for example, to complete it).

To remove this comparison and close the sentence, you must add the adverb 很 hěn.

So the sentence "I am well" is written: 我很好 Wǒ hěn hǎo.

But should it then be translated as "I am well" or as "I am very well"? In writing, there is no way to decide: the ambiguity is real. In speech, on the other hand, everything hangs on stress. If 很 hěn is not stressed, it means "I am well".
Listen:   

If 很 hěn is stressed, it means "I am very well".
Listen:   

No conjugation

In Chinese, there is no conjugation:
我很好。 Wǒ hěn hǎo. I am well.
你很好。 Nǐ hěn hǎo. You are well.
他很好。 Tā hěn hǎo. He is well.

The verb does not move. Only the pronoun changes.

The interrogative sentence

The full question, or total interrogation, is built very simply:

Example: 你好吗？ Nǐ hǎo ma? Are you well?

Two remarks:

  1. since this is not an affirmative sentence, the adjectival verb (好 hǎo, "to be well") no longer implies a comparison. So there is no need to add 很 hěn. If you add it anyway, the question becomes: "Are you very well?" 你很好吗？ Nǐ hěn hǎo ma?
  2. in a Chinese question, there is no subject inversion. The order stays subject, verb, object. That is good news, and it holds for every question you will meet later on.

The adverb 也

也 yě is an adverb meaning "also, too". Like all adverbs in Chinese, it goes before the verb, or before the other adverbs that come before the verb. This is a general rule of Chinese grammar.

Example: 我也很好。 Wǒ yě hěn hǎo. I am (very) well too.

You can see it in this example: "me too" needs no verb in English, but Chinese does need one. The verb must absolutely be repeated. 我也。 is impossible. Why? Because in Chinese, an adverb always works with a verb.

Finally, if several adverbs follow one another, 也 always comes first:
你很不客气，他也很不客气。 Nǐ hěn bú kèqi, tā yě hěn bú kèqi. You are not at all polite (literally "very not polite"), and neither is he.

A small note: 也不 translates as "neither / not either".