Questions Regarding Grammar, etc...

[master66241]

Dunno if this is the correct spot, but here goes:

 

Hello there. During my studies with Mandarin Chinese (I haven't learned characters yet though), everything was going quite well, until I reached the, I guess, more complex sentences involving the sentence particle "de". I can understand things like:

wode shu (my book)

manman de zou (slowly walk)

woxihuan de shu (the book I like)

 

Then, I came across a sentence reading: 

Ta zhangde gen ta fuqin yiyang gao (He has grown as tall as his father.)

I was confused because why is "de" in that sentence? Is it necessary? When can we use "de"?

 

 

Another thing I was wondering was if I got this correctly:

I am traveling to China.

Wo qu zhongguo luxing.

 

...And I think that's it. These are some of the issues that are bugging me a lot. Please help me and thanks in advance!

[edelweis]

There are a bunch of different usages of "de" in Chinese.

It is easier to distinguish them in writing because the modern usage is to use 3 different characters (although typos are frequent).

 

1) before a noun: 的

woxihuan de shu

wode shu

this "de" links a noun (shu) to a word or phrase that explains which book/thing we are talking about (mine / the one that I like).

Note that in some instances, the noun can be omitted!

 

2) before a verb: 地

manman de zou

this "de" links a verb (zou) to an adverb explaining in which manner the action is done (slowly).

 

3) after a verb: 得

Ta zhang de gen ta fuqin yiyang gao

this "de" links a verb (zhang) to the result of the action. (he grew up, and the result is that he is now as tall as his father. The result could be all kind of things like "ta zhang de hen haokan" = she grew up to be very beautiful, meaning: she is very beautiful)

 

4) in a structure like shi ... de （是...的）

 

and so on.

 

https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/De

 

[Publius]

Well there are three de's:

的 the possessive/adjectival (attributive) marker, the nominalizer, the sentence (modal) particle

地 the adverbial marker

得 the degree/potential complement marker

The one that confused you is the the third. It comes after the verb: Ta1 zhang3de5 hen3 gao1.

One of the first things Chinese kids learn in school is the difference between these three de's (or rather, de4, di4, de2).

 

[gwr71]

understanding Mandarin grammer is essential.  I use ,A course in contemporary chinese vol 1 and PAVC 1 and it is difficult to understand the whys.  Why is it so?  There are some similarities to English but It is so different in many respects to English.  The solution , you will need to read a grammer book separate from the books that you are learning Mandarin from.  A reference book .  The knowledgeable persons in this forum in another thread recommended a grammer book.  "Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammer, 2nd edition" I think.  It is highly recommended.  There is also a workbook with it.  Consider reviewing this book.

[陳德聰]

As for your last question, “wǒ qù Zhōngguó lǚxíng” has some ambiguity of meaning but if you are getting the pinyin and general grammar surrounding it right, I think you’re doing okay.

[Shelley]

On 11/27/2017 at 8:55 AM, master66241 said:

(I haven't learned characters yet though)

 

Its probably a good idea to start now, as you have seen you might have been less confused if you had seen the characters and realised they were different. This is one reason I advocate learning characters right from the start,  it helps with things like this.

 

And especially in this case where they all have the same tone. I noticed your pinyin has no tones, if this is because you don't have an input method, there are several to try, personally I use Pinyinput.

[DavyJonesLocker]

I'd get into characters early. Many of us have made that mistake in the past. In hindsight I should have started looking at characters in the first week of studies. 

I went through all 3 levels of Pimsleur before even looking at a single character and have no concept of the three de's. That was a mistake

[master66241]

Oh, I see. Thanks everyone for your contributions. Pretty helpful to me

 

About tone marks....I've confused myself on that part. Though I could try to relearn them. I know the tone marks, but I confused myself with the numbers. 

 

As for characters, I guess I could get into it right now.

 

Again thanks everyone.

[DavyJonesLocker]

1.

5 hours ago, master66241 said:

About tone marks....I've confused myself on that part. Though I could try to relearn them. I know the tone marks, but I confused myself with the numbers

 

Quite easy really

Tone mark 1. ā

Tone mark 2. á

Tone mark 3. ǎ

Tone mark 4. à

There is also a 5th category (but not called a 5th tone mark) which has no tone like 吗，吧， 了 etc 

 

Remember many characters can have different pinyin and/or different tones, for example

着 can be pronounced as zhe,  zháo, zhāo, zhuó

得 Commonly pronounced as děi, de 

 

[Publius]

Yeah,  tone numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 correspond to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th tone: mā, má, mǎ, mà. And 5 or 0 is used to represent the neutral tone: ma. I prefer 5 because it's how characters are sorted in a dictionary, with neutral tones at the end.

[gwr71]

please visit websites like yoyochinese.com which have free lessons on the tones signs and the sounds that it makes.

 

 Having just redone the basics on mandarin , I can say quite safely that it seems your foundation in Mandarin is not good.  You need to go over the basics again.  If you are not aware of the basics, I will briefly outline them for you. many person usually start with a basic book on Mandarin that teaches from Scratch.  In the beginning of these books there are usually the basics.  They may be complex so I myself skipped them.  I was frightened by tones.  However, as you progress you have to go them over and learn them.  There are two basic aspects: pronouncing the syllables (reading the pinyin also)  and writing characters.

 

In respect to syllables you must consider the following:

a. Learn the initials;

b. learn the finals;

c. learn the tones; and 

d. learn to pronounce ( by reading the pin yin) the pin yin chart or the 400 syllables in Chinese mandarin.

 

In respect to writing characters you must consider the following:

a. Learn the 8 strokes;

b. learn the stroke order;

c. learn the 214  Chinese radicals.

After learning the above no Chinese character would be difficult for you to master. You will discover that these complex characters are just the amalgamation of many small characters joined together.

 

The above is all available at various websites like yoyochinese.com.  There  are many. Please find one that you are comfortable with.  There are many free sites so browse.

[master66241]

gwr71, thanks for the sites and outlining the basics. I know my Chinese isn't good at all. The book I'm using is DeFrancis's Beginning Chinese. It doesn't start off with characters until later on, which is quite unfortunate as I was initially trying to find a book that taught characters along with the pinyin in the beginning.

[Shelley]

Are you using DeFrancis's because it use traditional characters? I use New Practical Chinese Reader, this is available in simplified and traditional. This introduces characters almost right from the start. It has workbooks as well and I recommend it as it is very well paced and thorough course. You may have to supplement some extra speaking practice but there are audio mp3s and videos to help with listening.

 

In my blog I describe how I use NPCR and other learning materials. The link is in my signature below.

[gwr71]

listen to shelley

[Lu]

There is also a book for learning characters in the DeFrancis series. It doesn't correspond exactly to the grammar book: you learn to say Bái xiānshēng, nǐ qù túshūguǎn ma? while you learn to write 火山  and 水手. So both aspects start with the easiest parts, even though the easiest parts are not the same. This is how I learned Chinese initially. I feel a bit bad when I see how students in my university have to learn 幾 and 城 in week three, but I suppose they learn it just fine too.