Jump to content
Chinese-Forums
  • Sign Up

Verbs at the end of sentences


xiexieniii

Recommended Posts

I had a teacher who told me that the verb should not go at the end of the sentence...for example, "他买东西去了" should be "他去买东西了".
I think your teacher was a bit too prescriptive there. It's perfectly fine to say "他买东西去了", and it's quite common for 去 to end the sentence. In fact, you can even see 去 twice in the same sentence:

A: 他到哪儿去了?

B: 他买东西了。

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"买东西去了" is right for "gone for buying stuff".

But "买东西去" (normally followed by "!") means "Go and buy the stuff!"

Thus, ignoring the “了” will make the sentense an order, as Leeyah correctly said.

And, “滚一边去" ("roll aside") means "go away!", not "beat it". Leeyah must be missing MJ a lot these days...

Note that 滚一边儿去 is another order.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't see anything wrong with "他买东西去了". My grammar is not very good but I am pretty sure that there is no such rule in Chinese that you can't put the verb at the end of the sentence. Especially if you are talking about something that has already be done, it is perfectly fine to say things like "这本书去年我就已经读过了".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't really know how to generalise their usage, though.

去, and 来, in sentences like this are called "directional complements", often used to identify the direction of the action indicated by the main verb (but sometimes can be mixed up with 去 and 来 which themselves are the main verbs in the sentence).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and select your username and password later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Click here to reply. Select text to quote.

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...