About Chinese Language

语法小常识

（一）Changes in the internal structures and forms of words are not universal.
Unlike indo-euro language system, there are few changes of gender, number, case, tense, aspect, voice, etc. A few limited changes are: end morpheme of verb(着(-ing form), 了(-ed form), 过); overlapping. However, these changes are not included in all the words of the kind, nor are they used in all situations.For instance, the overlapping style of dual-syllable is usually ABAB.e.g. 漂亮 --- 漂漂亮亮 However, in 美丽，we cannot say 美美丽丽. In Chinese, “们” can be used as plural forms, but it is very rare to represent all the words. e.g. 他们是工人. (They are workers.) Though “they” is in plural form, one cannot say “他们是工人们。”(They are workers.)Verbs in Chinese do not change in consistence with person, gender, number and tense. e.g. “是”(be) --- “我是中国人。”(I'am Chinese.) “你是中国人。”(You are Chinese.)“我们是中国人。”(We are Chinese.) “他们是中国人。”(They are Chinese.)
No matter how the first person, the second person , the third person or singular, plural form change, they have no influence on verb "be" in Chinese.Pronouns and verbs do not change according to where they are in the sentence. e.g. “我” --- “我吃饭。”“他来看我。”“我朋友。” No matter it is the nominative case, the objective case or the possessive case, there’s no change of forms.

（二）Word order and function word in a sentence are important.
Since changes in the internal structures and forms of words are not universal, word order and function word become very important in Chinese. Firstly, different order expresses different meaning. e.g. “我喜欢他。(I like him.)”“他喜欢我。(He likes me.)”“不很好。(It’s not good.)”“很不好。(It’s very bad.)”Secondly, meaning is different when it comes to whether to use function words and what function words to use. e.g. “买书(buying books)”“买的书(book bought)” “我把他打了。(I hit him.)”“我被他打了。(I was hit by him.)”

（三）Chinese has numerous measure words. Different nouns match with different measure words.
e.g.
“一本书(a book)”
“一个人(a person)”
“一条狗(a dog)”