Tag: Chinese Grammar

We tell about all 12 principles of sentence building using 马 (mǎ — horse)

Principle 1: Words gain meaning step by step. A single character is vague. Add another character → meaning gets sharper. Add a third → more specific.
Chinese has many homophones. Context comes from combining characters into longer words.

马 (mǎ) = horse
马车 (mǎ chē) = horse + vehicle → carriage
马路 (mǎ lù) = horse + road → road (originally for horses)

Principle 2: Last word completes the idea/ In a

Small words are switches. Add one → flip the meaning.

HOW SMALL WORDS WORK

How we used to see this in English

"I eat" → "I ate" (change the verb itself)

"I eat" → "Do I eat?" (add "do" + change word order)

In China it works completely differently. We don`t change the word form, the main words never change (吃 stays 吃), small words do all the work (了, 吗, 把, 被).

马的 (mǎ de) — horse + possessive 的 (de) → "the horse's" So without 的 it is just 马 (hourse)

The Most Common Small Words