Mandarin Learning Basic

If in English consist of three pattern of the verbs, in Mandarin, however, only one form of each verb exist. So we need not to memorizing the ‘conjugation table’, but the word order is very important in Chinese sentences. Word order is often the only indication in Mandarin to tell, so to speak, who is doing what to whom.

Like in English, the normal form to declarative sentences, subject- verb - object, as this sample:

我喝水 pronounced ‘wo(3) he(1) shui(3)’ means ‘I drink water. (I am drinking water)’
你喝水 pronounced ‘ni(3) he(1) shui(3)’ means ‘You drink water.’
他喝水 pronounced ‘ta(3) he(1) shui(3)’ means ‘He drinks water.’

In sample of first sentence, we notice that both “I drink water or I am drinking water’ are translated as 我喝水. Yeah, in mandarin there are no helping verbs like is/am/are in English.

It’s the same for other pattern like past tense in English, if I want to say, ‘I drank water yesterday’ in Chinese? See this sample below:

我昨天喝水 pronounced ‘wo(3) zhuo(2) tian(1) he(1) shui(3)’ means ‘I drank water yesterday’. You see the different in the word order, in chinese mandarin the time adverb usually be used after the ‘subject’ or we can use it in the first of sentences like 昨天我喝水. Got it?