Archive for the ‘Grammar in Mandarin Chinese’ Category

The meaning of yì sī

What is the meaning of “意思” in Chinese? While in Chinese, sī can mean serveral things.

1. sī means mearning: e.g. zhè shì shén me “这是什么意思“: what does it mean/what is the meaning of this.

2. Or it can mean interesting/not interesting, e.g. zhè diàn yǐng zhēn méi (这个电影真没意思): This movie is really boring/not interesting.

3. Or when you give people a present and thatt present is not something expensive or just a little thing, here means server as a token! example, wǒ mǎi le diǎn er shuǐ guǒ gěi tā ,jiù suàn (我买了点儿水果给他,就算意思意思): I bought some fruits for him, just serve as a token(Show my token).

4. Sometimes, sī shows a tendency or trend of something, for example, xiàn zài tiān qì tiān bǐ tiān liáng ,yǒu qiū tiān de le (现在天气一天比一天凉,有秋天的意思了。) : Now the weather is getting cooler and cooler, it seems autumn is coming. another example: kàn tā duì de yǒu yì (我看他对那个女的有意思): I think he fell in love with that girl.
Now you may try to translate these sentences into Chinese with sī (意思)
1. What is the meaning of
bù zài hu in Chinese?
2. Chinese is very interesting
3. This is to just show my token.
4. Do you really like that girl?

When do we use lè or guò?


When you learn Mandarin, you can find a lots of function words or we called them grammar words sometimes, “lè” and “guò″ are two very important grammar words in Mandarin, they indicate action is the past/past tense. But what is the difference? and when do you use guò or lè?

For example, if you want to say, “I  had dinner last night”, you will say “wǒ zuó tiān wǎn shàng chī fàn le“(我昨天晚上吃饭), it’s a past tense sentence.

While, if you want to say “I have been to Beijing”, then you have to say “wǒ qù guò běi jīng” (我去北京), here is past perfect tense.

Understand?

Now, try to translate these sentences into Chinese:
1. I learnt Mandarin yesterday.
2. I have eaten my breakfast.
3. I forgot my book at home.
4. I have said to him already.

xian sheng V.S lao shi

xiān shēng (先生)means Sir, Mister, or Husband.
examaple:
1. tā shì wǒ xiān shēng (他是我先生): He is my husband.
2. wáng xiān shēng ,nǐ hǎo (王先生,你好!)Hello, Mr.Wang.

lǎo shī(老师)is teacher. xiān shēng (先生)meant teacher in ancient time, but now we are not using it that often to call a person xiān shēng (先生)as a teacher!