Chinese language for dummies: 2. The simplicity of the grammar

Comparing to any European language, grammatically, Chinese is really simple.

1. No verb conjugation – 动词永远不需要变位

Unlike French(or other European language) where the verb changes the form for each subject, in Chinese, we do not change it at all!

example, in French when we say “to go”, the verb in French is: “aller”
Je vais
tu vas
il/elle va
nous allons
vous allez
ils vont

In Chinese:
Je aller
tu aller
il/elle aller
nous aller
vous aller
ils aller

simple, no?

2. No gender on object – 物品不分阴阳性

Unlike in French(or other European language) where every object has a gender, for instance, une table, un ordinateur ..
In Chinese, all the objects are just object, no need to think if the object is feminine or masculine, thus no need to conjugate the verbs or use articles differently.

3. No plural on objects – 名词没有复数

In Chinese, we say one apple, two apple, three apple, why do we need to add ‘s’ on the object when we know the number already？

4. No tense – 没有时态变换

The same logic, we say in Chinese:
I eat today, I eat tomorrow, I eat yesterday.

5. One word to turn a sentence to question – 一秒钟变问句

The word 吗(ma) is a question tag in Chinese, you can add after any sentence, then you turn this sentence into a question!
他走了。(He’s gone.)
他走了吗？(Is he gone?)

If you talk to any Chinese person and found he or she makes a lot of grammar mistakes, now you understand why.

On the other hand, although we don’t have any rules in the grammar, but Chinese is a very subtle language. When speaking, you do need to choose your words properly, otherwise, one word in a sentence can make a huge difference.

Check the below video to have more example:

Read more:
Chinese language for dummies: 1. The logic of the characters
Chinese language for dummies: 3. The Pinyin