Happening now
I am eating an apple.
- 1 · WHO我I
- 2 · IN PROGRESS正在in progress
- 3 · VERB吃eat
- 4 · WHAT苹果apple
正在 comes before 吃 and shows that the action is in progress.
MANDARIN FOR ENGLISH SPEAKERS
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我学中文。I study Chinese.
Wǒ xué Zhōngwén.Learning Mandarin after a Romance language
Some parts of Mandarin grammar may feel more straightforward if you’re used to Romance languages. You can begin using everyday sentences without memorizing conjugation tables or learning a grammatical gender for each noun.
No verb conjugation for person or tense
Use the same verb form for “I”, “you”, and “they”. Time words, context, and sentence patterns help express past, present, and future.
No masculine or feminine noun classes
You do not need to memorize a grammatical gender for each noun.
No adjective agreement endings
Adjectives do not change their endings to agree with nouns.
What takes practice: learning tones, understanding spoken sentences, recognizing characters, and using word order and particles. You can start with short, useful sentences while you develop these skills. The examples below show how.
How Mandarin verbs work
Mandarin verbs keep the same form when the person or time changes. Time expressions and context tell us whether a sentence refers to the past, present, or future.
01
Change the person and time
在 (zài) means “be at” in these sentences. It keeps the same form in “I am at home”, “she was at home”, and “you will be at home”.
- 1Who?I我Person
- 2When?today今天Time expression
- 3Verbbe at在Unchanged verb
- 4Where?home家Location
EXAMPLE SENTENCE
I am at home today.
我今天在家。
Word by word: I · today · be at · home
Select a person and a time to compare the sentences.
The subject, such as “I” or “she”, tells us who the sentence is about. A time expression, such as “yesterday”, tells us when. Neither requires a change to the Mandarin verb.
These examples use one common sentence pattern. The sentences with “tomorrow” describe where someone plans to be.
02“Am eating”, “ate”, and “have eaten”
吃 (chī) means “eat”. In these examples, 正在, 了, and 过 describe an action in progress, an event that happened, or a previous experience. The verb 吃 keeps the same form.
An event happened
I ate an apple.
- 1 · WHO我I
- 2 · VERB吃eat
- 3 · EVENT了event happened
- 4 · WHAT一个苹果one apple
了 follows 吃. In this sentence, it presents the eating as an event that happened.
Past experience
I have eaten apples before.
- 1 · WHO我I
- 2 · VERB吃eat
- 3 · EXPERIENCE过experience before
- 4 · WHAT苹果apples
过 follows 吃 and shows that the person has had this experience before.
Learn these expressions in complete sentences, since their use depends on the verb and context. 了 (le) also has other uses and is not a general past-tense ending.
Explore Mandarin sentence patternsGrammar references: time words · 了 and 过. Examples written for this site.
Continue with the beginner course to practice pronunciation and everyday sentences.
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