babayne

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2008-04-26
Language : None
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From :   Divine Grace Tan

Date : 2008-04-28 / 11:11AM

i was wondering if verbs in mandarin also take the -ing form to signify if the action is being done in the presentif so, can you tell me how? does ‘zai’ mean are and is?? & how do you make a noun plural???pls..tell me..i just started learning mandarin a week ago..your video in youtube really helped me a lot. i really really want to learn how to speak in mandarin=]

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benny

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2007-01-01
Language : English, Mandarin Chinese
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 Benny the Mandarin Teacher bennysland.com 
2008-04-28 / 05:57PM

Hi Divine, first of all, we don’t have “-ing” after Verb. Instead we gave a structure which is " zài + Verb". For example:

wǒ zài hē kā fēi = I am drinking coffee.

“zài” means “to be in / at”, for example:

wǒ zài Shanghai = I am in Shanghai
nǐ zài Shanghai ma? = Are you in Shanghai?

In Chinese we have many ways to make a noun plural. As for people we put “men” after subject, for example:

wǒ men = we/ us
nǐ men = you guys
tā men = they

As for objects, we don’t put anything after that, instead we need to use “lots of or many” before that, for example:

hěn duō yú = lots of fish

hěn duō góu = lots of dogs

Benny



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