Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar

Qin Xue Herzberg: Qin Xue Herzberg is a native speaker of Chinese and a graduate of Beijing Normal University in Chinese Language and Literature. For the past ten years she has been the upper-level Chinese language professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. For the past several decades she has taught Chinese to Americans of all ages. Larry Herzberg: Larry Herzberg studied Chinese for five years at Vanderbilt University before doing his Master's and Ph.D. work in Chinese Language and Literature at Indiana University. In 1980 he founded the Chinese Language Program at Albion College and then did the same at Calvin College in 1984. For the past three decades he has taught the Chinese language at the college level.

• INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE: BASIC WORD ORDER 1) Basic Word Order 2) Action and Location 3) Action and Time 4) Word Order for When Something Happens 5) Duration of Time 6) Placement of the word “Why?” CHAPTER TWO: TIME EXPRESSIONS 1) When/While… 2) Days, Weeks, Months, Years CHAPTER THREE: NOUNS 1) Plurals 2) Counting Things 3) “This” and “That” 4) Nouns for Nationalities and Languages 5) “All” of some Noun 6) Indefinites 7) Not Even One Bit of Something 8) Location Words CHAPTER FOUR: VERBS 1) Past Tense 2) Present Tense 3) Future Tense 4) The Word “It” with Verbs 5) Helping Verbs 6) Going, Coming, Returning 7) The “Ba” Pattern with Verbs 8) The “Shi…de” Pattern with Past Tense Action Verbs 9) Passive Voice CHAPTER FIVE: ADJECTIVES 1) General Rules for Adjectives?2) How to Translate “Bad”?3) “Not Bad”?4) “Nice”?5) “Pretty”6) Positive Comparisons 7) Negative Comparisons CHAPTER SIX: USES OF THE PARTICLE “LE” 1) Action Verbs in Past Tense 2) Change of Status with Adjectives 3) Imminent Action 4) “Not Any More” CHAPTER SEVEN: USES OF THE PARTICLE “DE” 1) Uses of ?(de) 2) Uses of ?(de) 3) Uses of ?(de) CHAPTER EIGHT: CONJUNCTIONS (AND; OR) 1) “And”: Connecting nouns; verbs and adjectives 2) “Or”: In a statement; in a question CHAPTER NINE: SUBORDINATE CLAUSES 1) Connecting sentences with “who”/”that”?2) If…then?3) As soon as>?4) Even>?5) Because>?6) No Matter Whether>?7) Besides?CHAPTER TEN: How to Express the verb “can” in Chinese?1) Know how to (hui)?2) Physically able (neng)?3) May/permitted (keyi)?4) Resultative Endings?CHAPTER ELEVEN: Word Choice Issues with Certain Important Verbs?1) To “be” (“shi” vs. “zuo” vs. “dang”) ?2) To “know” (“zhidao” vs. “renshi”)?3) “Like” vs. “Would like to” (“xihuan” vs. “xiang”)?4) “To think/to feel” (“xiang” vs. “juede”)?5) “To ask”?6) “To tell”?7) “To seem like” (“haoxiang” vs. “xiang”)?8) “To receive”?9) “To be afraid”?10) “To worry”?11) “To help”?12) “To take”?13) “To lose”?14) “To produce”?CHAPTER TWELVE: Word Choice Issues with Adverbs?1) “from”?2) “first”3) “actually” 4) “although” 5) “almost” 6) “unless” 7) “every time” CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Letter Writing Issues 1) Greetings and Salutations 2) Writing to one’s Parents 3) Closing the Letter 4) More on Ending the Letter 5) Social Niceties