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Confusing Chinese Structures

 Confusing Chinese Structures

As any other language, Chinese also has a complex grammar. Of course, come structures are easier than others. In this post, you'll see a lot of confusing grammar structures that are part of an intermediate learner coursework. Also, this structures are not based of the HSK, instead they are based on the GoChinese Series. If you want to learn more about these books, click here.

What makes these structures hard?

These structures are complicated, because they do not have a translation to English, nor there are similar to any other structure in Spanish. Depending on your mother tongue, you might be able to assimilate them a bit faster.

Furthermore, This is a clear example of why when learning a language, it is important to focus on the meaning things have, instead of simply translating everything. As in the future, this will make your language learning path a lot smoother and less confusing.

Grammar structures:

原來...啊

This structure is used to indicate that you have discover or come to the knowledge of something new and unknown. It has a connotation of being surprised about this discovery. In this case, 原來 is like 本來 both of them can be directly translated as: originally. Meanwhile, the character 啊 is used to add emphasis to the phrase.

This structure is often used as 原來 + Subject + Verb + Complement + 啊 + 。/!

*Also, when we are talking about something that you have come to know the verb 知道 it is not used, as it is implied in the structure that you didn't know about it.

Situation 1+ 還是 +´Situation 2 +最重要

This structure is quite hard as there is not an exact translation, but its meaning is something like: is this.. more important or is .... more important. 

The most common used is when someone is complaining or gave two different points. Then, the other person would respond: is ... or ... more important. The structure does not explicitly say which is more important, but the rule say that the second situation is the one which is more important.

Rhetoric Questions

These structures are not really complicated as they are written just like any question, but what is actually  hard is to identify that they are not a real questions, instead they are rhetoric. 

怎麼可以.... 呢？ How can you ... ? 

In this case the speaker is often mad about something you did, and they are not asking you how did you do it, instead it means something more like How do you dear to ...

Example: 你怎麼可以拿別人的東西呢？

*In this structure 呢 can be omitted, but it is used to not be so harsh 

Situation + 的時候，(我)不是+ Action + 嗎?

This structure is used to say that at a certain time or situation, you did a certain action. Its like when I ...did I .... 

Example: 昨天下的時候, 我不是把書拿給你了嗎？ yesterday after class didn't I have you the book? In this question, the speaker is certain that he or she gave it back and it is helping the other person remember what actually happened. 



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