Word order and Verbs
Basic Word Order
Subject-Verb-Object
The order of most Chinese sentences is S-V-O, that is Subject-Verb-Object.
- 我看这本书。
- 我看這本書。
- Wǒ kàn zhèi běn shū.
- I am reading this book.
When using a time phrase, the time phrase will fall after the subject and before the verb. So we can now think of our structure as S-T-V-O: Subject-Time-Verb-Object.
- 我明天看这本书。
- 我明天看這本書。
- Wǒ míngtiān kàn zhèi běn shū.
- I will read this book tomorrow.
The next thing we can add to the sentence is a place phrase. This will fall after the time phrase. The structure can now be expanded to S-T-P-V-O: Subject-Time-Place-Verb-Object.
- 我明天在我家看这本书。
- 我明天在我家看這本書。
- Wǒ míngtiān zài wǒ jiā kàn zhèi běn shū.
- I will read this book at my house tomorrow.
In English, we can move these parts of the sentence around, but word order in Chinese is fixed.
Topic-Comment
Another structure for Chinese sentences is topic-comment. That is, the first thing mentioned is the topic of discussion and then the speaker will add a comment following that.
It is used to emphasize a certain part of the sentence. In the following example, the speaker wants to emphasize that he is going to read the particular book being discussed.
- 这本书，我明天在我家看。
- 這本書，我明天在我家看。
- Zhèi běn shū, wǒ míngtiān zài wǒ jiā kàn.
- I will read this book tomorrow.
Comparisons Using bǐ [比]
| Comparisons can be made using bǐ [比]. Adverbs (like 不，也，只，都）and any auxiliary verbs are placed before bǐ in the sentence. The amount of the disparity between the two is placed after the adjective. |
| A 比 B + Adj. |
|---|
1. 她比我忙。
- Tā bǐ wǒ máng.
- She is busier than I am.
2. 东尼也比我忙很多。
- Dōngní yě bǐ wǒ máng hěn duō.
- Tony is also a lot busier than I am.