-men

[lee_ochiba]

so, I got told you can't use the animate-human-prefix -men at the end of a sentence. Is this true, and if so, why?

and can you fix it to non-animate things to make slang? because 'doumen' meaning 'everyone' struck me as kinda natty. but, that could be a faux pas.

k, thanks, and optionally, oops sorry.

--l o'c

[Catdiseased]

-men is only used after nouns and pronouns afaik..

[elisabeth_rb]

Hi there!

The use of -men as a plural suffix is very limited. You will only see it as a plural with pronouns, as the last reply said and *very* occasionally with certain nouns and then only when no number is indicated.

For instance, you can say 'Wode pengyoumen', (my friends - ie when it is necessary to distinguish it from 'my friend'), but you cannot say 'Wode sange pengyoumen'.

It comes up on rare occasions like 'Renmen shuo...' 'people say', but you generally will not encouter it beyond plural pronouns. See Yip Po-ching and Don Rimmington's 'Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook' by Routledge, ISBN:0415160375 for more info and exercises. Actually, this book would be a great investment for you in your studies.

If you want to say 'everyone', you will want 'Da4jia1'. 'Doumen' makes no sense at all, I'm afraid!=( You can make up Chinese words to some extent, but you really need to have a good grip on and real feel for the language first. Give it time and have fun learning!

Hope that helps!=)