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Expats In China 

Chinese Learning In China
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Home > Chinese basics > Grammar

Chinese grammar is one of the simpliest to learn. You will be happy to
know that it has no conjugations, tenses, nor plural as we know them.
In many western languages such as French, , you need to learn 6 forms
of verbs for each tense:
j'ai / tu as / il a
nous avons / vous avez / ils ont

If we count: 6 forms x 10 tenses x 3 groups of verbs = 180 forms to
memorize without counting all the weird exceptions.
In Chinese, however, only one form of each verb exists. Whatever the
tense and noun or pronoun you use, the form of the verb remains the
same. To form a plural, you just need to add a special character ( -
pronounce 'men') behind the subject of the sentence indicating the
plural:
= I drink tea
= we drink tea

That's all! This makes the grammar learning phase a whole lot easier
and faster.
Besides, word order is very important in Chinese sentences as it is
the only indication of what action is being performed by whom. In
normal Chinese declarative sentences, word order is the same as that
of normal English declarative sentences, subject - verb - object, but
it's not always the case:
= I / like (to) / listen (to) / music
= I / very much / like (to) / listen (to) / music

As far as tenses are concerned, instead of inflecting verbs, the
Chinese language relies heavily on the use of adverbs to communicate
what English and many other languages do with different verb tenses.
And looking at the literal translations in the following examples, you
realize that English could probably get by without verb inflections
too, if it had to:

You see, there's nothing to be afraid of! You now understand how
practical and easy Chinese grammar is.
This is also a great reason for learning Chinese instead of any other
language.

To continue this overview, please select one of the following topics:
* Characters
* Pronunciation

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