中文 - Sentence Structure
God I have not posted in a long time. Even personal posts have been sparse.
School really is all consuming sometimes. I also haven't had much time to study outside of my school subjects. Yes, I'm lame.
Totally hijacked from nciku blogs, I thought this was a very helpful lesson.
Mandarin Chinese sentence structure is quite different than English or other European languages. Since the word order doesn't match, sentences which are translated word-for-word to Mandarin will be difficult to understand. You must learn to think in Mandarin Chinese when speaking the language.
Subject (who)
Just like English, Mandarin Chinese subjects come at the beginning of the sentence.
Time (when)
Time expressions come immediately before or after the subject.
eg. John yesterday went to the doctor. John 昨天去看医生。
Yesterday John went to the doctor. 昨天John去看医生。
Place (where)
To explain where an event happened, the place expression comes before the verb.
eg. Mary in school met her friend. Mary 在学校见到她的朋友。
Prepositional Phrase (with whom, to whom etc.)
These are phrases which qualify an activity. They are placed before the verb and after the place expression.
eg.Susan yesterday at work with her friend ate lunch. Susan 昨天在公司和她的朋友一起吃午餐。
Object The Mandarin Chinese object has a great deal of flexibility. It is usually placed after the verb, but other possibilities include before the verb, before the subject, or even omitted. Conversational Mandarin often omits both the subject and the object when the context makes the meaning clear.
eg. I like on the train read the newspaper. 我喜欢在火车上看报纸。