The Simplicity Of Chinese Grammar - 7 (Reliably Stable Building Blocks)

I should have posted on this topic a long time ago, but better late than never.

It's fashionable to say that learning Chinese is hard, but I have found it easy right from the start. And that's because its grammar is both simple and logical.

Just take these two simple sentences in English, for example.

1. I love her

2. She loves me

They look very simple to a native speaker of English, but look at these two sentences again from the perspective of a student who knows no English at all.

Notice that when the pronoun changes from being the subject to being the object, it changes form to an unrecognisable extent.

"I" becomes "me". "She" becomes "her".

Notice also that the verb changes slightly.

When the subject is in the singular, the verb is "loves". When the subject is in the plural, the verb becomes "love". And there's an exception too! The subject "I" is singular, but the verb needs to treat it as plural, hence "I love" rather than "I loves".

So many rules and exceptions! They're really hard to remember for a new student of the language.

Now look at the corresponding statements in Mandarin.

1. 我 爱 她 wǒ ài tā ("I love her", literally "I love she")

2. 她 爱 我 tā ài wǒ ("She loves me", literally "She love I")

There is no change in the pronoun regardless of the case in which it is used. And there is no change in the form of the verb regardless of the number or gender of the subject. Check it out:

a. 他 爱 我 tā ài wǒ ("He loves me", literally "He love I"). There's no change to the verb when the gender of the subject changes.

b. 他们 爱 我 tāmen ài wǒ ("They love me", literally "They love I"). There's no change to the verb when the number of the subject changes.

How can one not find this a simple language to learn??

As one of my latest Duolingo lessons averred,

我 觉得 中文 的 语法 不 太 难 wǒ juédé zhōngwén de yǔfǎ bù tài nán ("I think Chinese grammar is not too difficult")

I had no difficulty agreeing with that statement.

Those Pesky Exceptions!

Exceptions to the rules of spelling, pronunciation and grammar are the bane of every language learner. English is particularly horrendous in having no relationship between how words are spelt and pronounced. Thankfully, English is more sensible than many other languages in the way it approaches gender. Hindi and French have two irrational genders. German has three, and randomly allocates genders to nouns without regard to biology. "Das Mädchen" (the girl) belongs to the neuter gender!

So far, I have found a refreshing consistency in pronunciation and grammar in Mandarin, but I have lately come across a few exceptions.

1. 得 is pronounced either dé or déi, depending on context.

a. 你 在说 得 太快 nǐ zài shuō dé tài kuài ("You're speaking too fast")

b. 我 得 买 票 wǒ déi mǎi piào ("I have to buy a ticket")

In fact, it's not just the pronunciation that changes. It's the meaning too.

2. 长 is pronounced either cháng or zhǎng, depending on context

This isn't actually too bad. When used as an adjective ("long"), 长 is pronounced cháng. When used as a verb ("to grow"), it's pronounced zhǎng.

a. 这条 裙子 太长 了 zhè tiáo qúnzi tài cháng le ("This skirt is too long")

b. 孩子 长 得 真快！háizi zhǎng dé zhēn kuài! ("Children grow up so fast!")

3. 了 can be pronounced either le or liǎo, depending on context

This is a bit more annoying, since a reader tends to read 了 as le most of the time, and would have to read ahead to the next character to understand that it's actually pronounced liǎo.

a. 我 忘记 了! wǒ wàngjì le! ("I forgot!")

b. 你 不 了解 我！nǐ bù liǎojiě wǒ! ("You don't understand me!")

4. 行 can be pronounced either xíng or háng, depending on context

This one is really annoying, because it's one of those exceptions one absolutely has to commit to memory.

a. 自行车 zìxíngchē (bicycle)

b. 银行 yínháng (bank)

5. 和 is pronounced either hé or huo, depending on context

a. 和 hé (with)

b. 暖和 nuǎnhuo (warm)

A Wasted Ideographical Opportunity

Over the last few months, I have seen several amazing examples of Chinese ideographs that perfectly captured an idea with just a few strokes.

But last week, I came across a character that seemed to me to be entirely misapplied. It would have been just perfect to describe something else. I suspect the original person who thought of the ideograph did intend to use it correctly, but later unimaginative scholars couldn't see the obvious picture it was evoking, and applied it wrongly to another concept.

The character is 笔 bǐ, and against all my instincts, it means "pen".

To me, the character screams "scorpion". Just look at it!

How can something that so obviously looks like a scorpion (two pincers/pedipalps, six legs, and a tail) be used to mean something completely unrelated? It makes no sense to me.

I'm actually a bit upset at the waste. 我 很 难过 wǒ hěn nánguò.

I console myself with a mnemonic. The pronunciation of the character 笔 ("bǐ") happens to be the first syllable of the Hindi word बिच्छू bichchhu, which means scorpion. And it also sounds like "Bic", which is a brand of pen.

China dropped the ball there, and India picked it up for half a point.

The Mandarin Equivalent Of There, Their And They're

So to add to the confusion of homophones in Mandarin, one of the most common sounds has three different characters with different meanings.

The best explanation I could find on the net was from the TutorMing site.

I'm going to repeat the salient points here, but with some changes in terminology that I hope will make things a bit easier to understand.

There are three characters that are pronounced "de" (no tone, but with one exception I will come to later). They are 的, 得 and 地.

Broadly speaking,

A. 的 de qualifies nouns

B. 得 de qualifies verbs

C. 地 de qualifies adjectives

There may be more than one way to qualify a noun, a verb, or an adjective, so let's look at that next.

A1. 的 de as a possessive qualifier for nouns (See my previous post on this):

我 的 书 wǒ de shū ("my book")

A2. 的 de as an attributive qualifier for nouns:

a. 红色 的 书 hóngsè de shū ("red book", literally "red colour-ed book")

b. 英文 说 的 人 yīngwén shuō de rén ("English-speaking people", literally "English speak-ing people")

B1. 得 de as an adverbial qualifier for verbs:

a. 他 说 中文 得 很好 tā shuō zhōngwén de hěn hǎo ("He speaks Chinese (de) very well")

This adverbial qualifier can also be attached to comparisons:

b. 冬天 里 北京 比 上海 冷 得 多 dōngtiān lǐ běijīng bǐ shànghǎi lěng de duō ("In winter, Beijing is much colder than Shanghai", literally "In winter, Beijing compared to Shanghai cold (de) much").

B2. 得 déi as a "must" qualifier for verbs:

我们 得 买 票 wǒmen déi mǎi piào ("We must buy tickets"). Here, 得 is actually pronounced déi, not de

C. 地 de as an adverbial qualifier for adjectives:

她 高兴 地 笑 了 tā gāoxìng de xiào le ("She smiled happily", literally, "She happy (de) smiled")

As an exercise for myself, I thought up three ways to say the same thing, using each of the three "de"s:

1. 我 能 说 流利 的 中文 wǒ néng shuō liúlì de zhōngwén ("I can speak fluent Chinese")

2. 我 能 说 中文 得 流利 wǒ néng shuō zhōngwén dé liúlì ("I can speak Chinese fluently")

3. 我 能 流利 地 说 中文 wǒ néng liúlì de shuō zhōngwén ("I can speak Chinese fluently")

Seeing Double-le

Duolingo lately introduced me to the use of the toneless particle 了 le twice in a single sentence.

Of course, I had come across sentences with two occurences of 了 le before, such as

我 吃 了 太多 饺子 了 wǒ chī le tài duō jiǎozi le ("I have eaten too many dumplings")

But the second use of 了 le when combined with 太 tài means "too much of" something, so that doesn't really count. E.g., 太 贵 了！ tài guì le! ("Too expensive!")

The kind of double-le sentence Duolingo meant was something like this:

我 这里 工作 了 十年 了 wǒ zhèlǐ gōngzuò le shí nián le ("I have worked here for 10 years")

Notice that the second part of the sentence 十年 了 shí nián le ("for 10 years") changes the implied tense of the first.

If we had just said,

我 去年 这里 工作 了 wǒ qùnián zhèlǐ gōngzuò le ("I worked here last year")

that would have been the simple past tense. Adding 十年 了 shí nián le ("for 10 years") changes the implied tense of the verb from "I worked" to "I have worked".

Here's a slightly more complex example.

我 等 你 等 了 一个 小时 了 wǒ děng nǐ děng le yīgè xiǎoshí le ("I have been waiting for you for an hour")

The first 了 le qualifies the verb 等 děng ("wait"), while the second 了 le qualifies the time 一个 小时 yīgè xiǎoshí ("one hour"), changing the implied tense from "I waited" to "I have been waiting".

[Aside:

Notice also that the verb 等 děng ("wait") is repeated, which seems to happen with transitive verbs. I had written about this before. To qualify the verb, you first use it along with its object, then repeat the verb alone without the object and suffix it with a 了 le.

我 等 你 等 了 一个 小时 了 wǒ děng nǐ děng le yīgè xiǎoshí le (literally, "I wait you wait (le) one hour (le)")

I suspect that transitive verbs and their objects have a very strong "electrostatic" bond in Chinese, which often renders them as a single word. You never just say 吃 chī ("eat"); you always say 吃饭 chīfàn ("eat rice") or use some other food object as part of the compond verb. Free-floating transitive verbs are like ions. They're never found alone, because their charge strongly attracts and binds them to objects with the opposite charge. You have to explicitly "ionise apart" the two components to be able to qualify the verb alone.

我 跑步 跑 得 很 快 wǒ pǎobù pǎo dé hěn kuài ("I run fast", literally "I run steps run (adverb indicator) (connector) fast"). The two words in 跑步 pǎobù (literally "run steps") always go together and masquerade as a single instransitive verb "to run" -- until you need to qualify it in some way. Then the actual verb 跑 pǎo has to be repeated separately for that purpose.

End aside]

Emojis Were Invented By The Chinese!

I just discovered something mind-blowing. Emojis (or rather emoticons, since these are strictly speaking just text) were invented by the Chinese centuries ago!

Just take a look at the characters for smile/laugh (笑 xiào) and for cry (哭 kū).

Two Sides To The Story (面 miàn and 边 biān)

I noticed something interesting about the way directions and sides are named in Mandarin.

Some of them have the suffix 面 miàn and some have the suffix 边 biān.

Examples of 面 miàn:

前面 qiánmiàn ("in front")

后面 hòumiàn ("behind")

里面 lǐmiàn ("inside")

外面 wàimiàn ("outside")

Examples of 边 biān:

旁边 pángbiān ("beside")

左边 zuǒbiān ("on the left")

右边 yòubiān ("on the right")

上边 shàngbiān ("on top")

下边 xiàbiān ("below")

北边 běibiān ("to the north")

南边 nánbiān ("to the south")

东边 dōngbiān ("to the east")

西边 xībiān ("to the west")

So why are certain directions or sides suffixed with 面 miàn and others suffixed with 边 biān?

A good explanation I found was on chinese.stackexchange.com. To reproduce it here (colouring mine):

To understand the differences properly, you need to know what is 面 and what is 边. 面 is a face whereas 边 is an edge. An edge is like a line guiding you [about] the direction. A face is what is facing you giving you a sense of position.

前/后面 is used to describe the position of something within your visual range. Whereas, 前/后边 is more appropriately used to describe something beyond visual range when giving directions.

镜子前面 (in front of the mirror) vs 车站前边 (beyond that bus stop in front)

外/里面 is used to describe location of an object in relation to another object. 外/里边 is used strictly for giving directions.

书包里面 (inside the school bag) vs 巷子里边 (in that alley)

左/右面 is used mainly to point to the left or right face of an object. 左/右边 is used to describe left or right side directions.

墙的左面 (on the left face of that wall) vs 车道左边 (left side of the roadway)

In summary, when you are giving directions, use 边; when you are describing positions, use 面.

I also found other explanations to the effect that the two terms were interchangeable, and it was more a case of regional preference (North China versus South China, or Mainland China versus Taiwan).

I'm not sure which explanation to believe, so I'm going to be conservative and stick to whatever Duolingo taught me, which is the initial list I provided.