Grammar 9
Learning Chinese: Unit 9 grammar
The date
Unlike in English, the date is built from the most general to the most specific:
The year is built by listing the digits before the word “year” 年 :
Thus, 2028 is said 二零二八年 . So you say “year two, zero, two, eight”. You must not say “two thousand twenty-eight”.
Months are built by placing the digit or the number (10, 11, 12) before the word “month” 月 :
January: 一月
February: 二月
March: 三月
...
October: 十月
November: 十一月
December: 十二月
Only the year is built by listing the digits.
The day of the month is built by placing the digit or the number before the word “day” 日 .
Caution
The word 天 , “sky / day” indicates duration (in an expression like “three days of vacation”, for example). Don’t confuse it with 日 which indicates the date.
The first of the month is said: 一日 , the second 二日 , the thirtieth 三十日 .
December 21, 2028 is therefore written: 二零二八年十二月二十一日.
In speech, one often uses 号 instead of 日 to indicate the day of the month: 一月五号 January 5.
To ask the date:
今天几月几日？ What day is it?
你几号回来？ What day are you coming back?
The adverbial of time
We saw in Unit 6 that the adverbial of place (where the action takes place) is placed before the action verb :
她在中国学中文。 She studies Chinese in China.
It is a general rule in Mandarin Chinese that adverbials are placed before the action verb (you must first set the scene before speaking of the action).
Point-in-time expressions therefore follow this rule:
我今天打电话。 I'm calling today.
我明天去看他。 I'll go see him tomorrow.
If the adverbial of place and that of time appear in the same sentence, which comes first? Time is considered more general than space. It is therefore placed first:
我明天在你家打电话。 I'll call you at your place tomorrow.
Note that in Chinese there is no grammatical tense (conjugation). It is the time words that place the action in the present, past or future.
The construction 什么时候 : when?
The question “when?” is said 什么时候 . Like almost all question words in Mandarin Chinese, it goes in the same place as the answer word:
你什么时候回家？ When do you go home?
我明天上午回家。 I'm going home tomorrow morning.
在 and the adverbial of place
When we saw the verb “to be” 是 , we said that its use is more restricted than in English.
For example, to say “to be somewhere” you do not use 是 but 在 :
他在北京。 He is in Beijing.
The question word is 哪儿 : where?
她在哪儿？ Where is she?
If you want to say that “you do something in a certain place”, you must introduce the adverbial of place with 在 placing it before the action verb :
我在中国学中文。 I study Chinese in China.
Duration
Unlike point-in-time expressions, duration is not an adverbial (placed before the verb), but a verbal complement which is placed after the verb :
我学汉语两年。 I did two years of Chinese.
Note the difference between:
我学汉语两年。 I did two years of Chinese.
and
我学汉语两年了。 I have been doing Chinese for two years.
The combination of the 了 final and duration gives the idea of “for/since” since the 了 places the situation in the present.
You should therefore remember these two sentences, which are often used:
你学汉语几年了？ For how many years have you been doing Chinese?
我学汉语三年了。 I have been doing Chinese for three years.
In the dialogue:
你回去几天？ For how many days are you going back?
我回去半个月。 I'm going back for half a month.
A slightly more difficult sentence:
你在北京大学读书读几年？ How many years are you studying at Peking University?
Why 读书读 ?
读书 is a verb with incorporated object (离合词 ) : it is composed of the verb 读 “to read, to study” and its object 书 “book, studies”.
In Chinese, a duration complement like 几年 “how many years” must be placed just after the verb. However, in 读书, the verb 读 is already followed by its object 书. You cannot say 读书几年.
The solution is to repeat the verb after the object to attach the complement to it:
We will look again in more detail at verb-object compounds (verbs with incorporated object) in the next unit.
The numeral 半
半 means “half”.
It is placed before the classifier to indicate that you are talking about half of the word placed after the classifier:
半个月 half a month
It is placed after the unit of measure (or after the classifier) to indicate that you add a half :
一个半月 a month and a half
八点半 8:30
会 as a marker of the future
We saw in previous units that 会 means “to know how to do”. It can also express theprobable future , the idea that “something is going to happen”. It is a future predictable or.
In the dialogue:
你今年会回法国吗？ + verb = probable / predictable future
我今年会回去。 Will you go back to Britain this year?
他会来吗？ I'll go back this year.
Will he come? 的 If you add the 会 at the end of a sentence with the as a future marker, you emphasize the :
他回来的。 certainty
He will (surely) come. 来 and 去
来 Simple directionals “to come” indicates movement toward 去 in relation to the speaker, and“to go” indicates :
他去中国。 movement away
他来法国。 He is going to China. (The speakers are not in China.)
He is coming to Britain. (The speakers are in Britain.) 来 and 去 to action verbs. They then indicate the direction of the action in relation to the speakers. They then become “directionals”. Example:
我回去。 I'm going back there. (I move away from the speaker)
你回来了！ You came back! (the speaker is here)
In the dialogue:
我今年会回去。 I'll go back this year. (Bái Xuě is moving away from Beijing.)
你几号回来？ What day are you coming back? (Gāo Xiǎoyǔ is in Beijing, waiting for the return.)
If you want to specify the place in the simple directional construction, you must put it between the action verb and the directional:
Example:
我回中国去。 I'm going back to China.
他回我家来。 He comes back home.
Note: “to go home” is simply said 回家 :
我下午六点回家。 I go home at 6:00 p.m.