Charlie Brown teaches Chinese sentence structures

I recently wrote an article entitled "The sentence with (the girl with (the dragon tattoo) )" where I spoke about how Chinese sentences are sometimes put together.  I presented a set of 13 examples where I showed how the ability to (mentally) apply brackets to a sentence makes it much easier - indeed makes it possible! - to understand what is being written.

What I didn't want to give is the impression that these structures are not common - in fact it was because they are so common that I decided to write about them in the first place.

So, to make my point (and to make it in a fun way) I paged through a Chinese version of the Peanuts cartoon strip, starring our little hero Charlie Brown.  Here are some frames which give more examples of  "(require brackets)'d sentences"   :-)

By the way, if you're not at the level of reading as many Chinese characters as this, don't worry about it. Focus on the English versions of the sentences, to start to get a feel for how they are constructed in Chinese.

(click on the images for clearer shots)

Frame 1:

This first frame is a great example of just how long the 'middle' phrases can be, and if you don't spot the opportunity to put in some brackets, then the sentence is going to seem like garbage (like it did with me, when I first saw this frame):

我要告诉你一些我以前从来没对任何人讲过的事情

我要告诉你一些(我以前从来没对任何人讲过)的事情

I want to tell you some (...) things

I want to tell you some (I have never told anyone before) things

I guess the clue is that after the words 一些 ('some') it seems to immediately begin a new sentence (我以前 ...) without any preposition or conjunction. That should get you thinking about brackets!

Frame 2:

你能不能把它放在一个我能想起来的地方？

你能不能把它放在一个(我能想起来)的地方？

Can you put them in a (...) place?

Can you put them in a (I am able to remember) place?

Frame 3:

我看见一个坐在南瓜地里的傻孩子

我看见一个((坐在南瓜地)里)的傻孩子

I can see a (...) dumb child

I can see a (sitting inside a pumpkin patch) dumb child

I used a double-brackets in the Chinese sentence to emphasise how prepositions (like 里=inside) are applied in Chinese, if that's not quite obvious to you yet.

Happy reading (subjects that you find interesting)'d texts.

The sentence with (the girl with (the dragon tattoo) )

One thing that made Chinese slow for me to pick up was the sentence structure - it is far less linear than English, or indeed than the couple of other languages I learned at school.

The subject of this article is stated somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it gives an idea of how I had to start perceiving Chinese sentences before I could work out what was going on. I've had this article in my mind for sometime now, but every time I've tried to write it I've ended up getting frustrated at my (in)ability to put into words what had become more natural to me after studying hundreds off sentences through flashcards, and reading even more through casual (low-level!) reading.

Learn by Example

So I've decided rather to just give a few example sentences, in the hope that by highlighting this for you - especially if Chinese is not yet natural-feeling for you - it might add value. If you have alternative explanations, or other examples, or better linear translations, please leave your comments below.

tl;dr: Try to think in terms of bracketing phrases to more easily understand Chinese.

(Note that if my explanations confuse you, just ignore them - put the sentences in your flashcard pack and learn them. What? You don't use flashcards yet??? Well now is a great time to begin ...)


A. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
龙纹身的女孩 龍紋身的女孩"
lóng wénshēn de nǚhái

The literal translation of the above sentence is "dragon tattoo'd girl". If we tried to stick with English, we might do something like 女孩和龙纹身 or 女孩跟龙纹身, but according to a native-speaker I was chatting with, this sounds more like there is a girl, and there is a dragon tattoo. Separate things.


B. People who want tattoos should go to a professional tattoo shop
要文身的人，必须去专业的文身店
yào​ wénshēn​ de rén​, bìxū​ qù​ zhuānyè​ de wénshēndiàn​

Since we're chatting about tattoos, here's another sentence from my flashcard pack. What I remember clearly about this sentence when I first learned it (2 years ago, according to Anki :-) was that the opening phrase was translated as "(want tattoo)'d people", rather than what I instinctively tried to say, which was roughly "那些人要文身，他们必须...". Clearly mine was clumsier.

We see the same format in the second part: "(professional)'d (tattoo shop)", but that is more obvious to us English-speakers because we mentally identify 'professional' as an adjective. What I'm saying here is we could see the part of 'wanting a tattoo' as an adjective to 'people', and things would make more sense.


C. From the moment that I met her, I hated her
自从我认识她的时候，我就恨她
zìcóng wǒ rènshi tā de shíhou, wǒ jiù hèn tā

Again, showing brackets into the sentence to show what is happening, we get:
     From (I met her)'s time, I hated her
This is so much nicer than literally trying to say "From. the. time. that ...".  Once you're more comfortable with Chinese, there won't be anything amazing about this sentence - it will feel very natural - but it clearly is a bit of a leap from a linear translation of the sentence.


D. What's a pretty girl like you doing here all alone?
像你这样的美女怎么会落单？
xiàng nǐ zhèyàng de měinǚ zěnme huì luòdān?

I've used this sentence in a previous post, but this time focusing on the sentence structure. Using brackets, it looks like this:
     like you (this kind of girl) how come alone?
I'm frustrating myself again trying to describe what is happening, rather than just leaving you to read the sentence, and see for yourself. So I'll now leave you simply to read the sentence and see for yourself ...


E. He is a man full of adventure
他是一个充满冒险精神的人
ta shi yige chōng​mǎn mào​xiǎn jīng​shén de ren

This is another really simple sentence, which is simply:
     he is a (...)'d person
I think that trying to linearly translate this would produce something like the following, which is terrible:
     he is a man, his characteristics are to be full of adventure


F. I met my wife on a blind date
我和我的妻子是通过相亲认识的
wǒ hé wǒ de qīzǐ shì tōngguò xiāngqīn rènshi de

Literally this is:
     me and my wife are (through blind-date)'d met
Sorry for the grammatically incorrect use of " 'd " but I hope it's helpful to identify the adjectival phrase which is happening. (And yes, I'm also aware it should be "My wife and I ...")

It's worth noting that I'm not saying this is the only way to translate this sentence, and in this case you might be able to come up with a relatively good linear translation. However, the key is that when you're listening to someone, or reading Chinese, your brain needs to act relatively quickly to put these notional brackets into place to allow the concepts to be sorted and understood.


G. People should have the ability to think for themselves
人要有独立思考的能力
rén yàoyǒu dúlì sīkǎo de nénglì

People should have (independent thinking)'d ability


H. There are many things which can cause heart disease
造成心脏病的原因有很多
zàochéng xīnzàngbìng de yuányīn yǒu hěnduō

(causing heart attack)'s causes are many


I. Avoid being subjective and one-sided when looking at problems
看问题的时候要避免主观片面
kàn wèn​tí de shíhou yào bì​miǎn zhǔ​guān piàn​miàn

(look at problems)'s time, you should ...


J. The houses are sold out within this price range
在这个价位范围之内的房子已售完
在這個價位範圍之內的房子已售完
zai zhege jiàwèi fànwéi zhīnèi de fángzi yǐ shòuwán

Note how the whole phrase about a being within a certain price range, is turned into an adjectival phrase which applies to the houses:
     (within this price range)'d houses are already sold


K. Insurance companies do not cover any accident which is caused by an act of God
保险公司不会理赔任何由天灾所引起的意外事故
bǎoxiǎn​gōngsī bùhuì lǐpéi rènhé yóu tiā​zāi suǒ yǐn​qǐ de yìwài​shìgù

insurers do not pay any (caused by an act of God)'d accidents


L. When we decide which sickness rates we need, I will ask you to help provide it.
当确定需要哪几项疾病的发生率时,我再请您們帮忙提供
dāng quèdìng xūyào nǎ jǐ xiàng jí​bìng de fā​shēng​lǜ shí, wǒ zài qǐng nínmen bāng​máng tí​gōng

This is an extract from an email from a client of mine, where the clarifying phrase applies to time again.      (when we decide which sickness rates we need)'d time, I will ask you ...


M. Don't disappoint your parents
不要辜负父母(对你)的期待 不要辜負父母對你的期待
bùyào gūfù fùmǔ duì nǐ de qīdài

I'll leave you to think about this one, but depending where you put the brackets it might look like your own expectations, or those of your parents. What should it be?



Use your Mental Brackets

If (you enjoy (the thoughts that I wrote down here)'d article)'s time, please (at (below-situated)'d area) leave comments.

A clever butcher uses a cleaver

If you were learning English, then the above sentence might be a good one to stick in your flashcards. Picturing a butcher who wears professorial glasses, holding a cleaver, might make it easier  - both visually and audio-wise - to remember the new word 'cleaver'. It's certainly more memorable then the sentence: "Use a cleaver to cut meat."

And this is the logic I've tried to use when finding new sentences to enter into my flashcard deck.

As you would have seen from my post a few months back about finding sentences, I use a variety of sources for my deck. But it was only when I was reviewing this sentence below, that I realised that there was a clever/cleaver trick that I was unconsciously using.

     Lennie stopped chewing and swallowed it whole
     Lúnní tíngzhǐ jǔjué, húlún yàn​le xiàqu​
     伦尼停止咀嚼，囫囵咽了下去
     倫尼停止咀嚼，囫圇咽了下去

While saying the sentence during my daily flashcard revision, I realised that this sentence had a clever/cleaver style of repetition in the words 'Lúnní​' and 'húlún'.  It's not a big thing, but I realised it was a bit of a mental crutch that I had indeed being relying on when learning the cards - and on a few occasions when I was trying to recall a word in conversation.

I went back through some of my flashcards, and found that so many sentences I'd chosen had inadvertently used this trick, and I've actually tried to be more intentional in this regard.


OK, so now that you know this trick, there really is nothing else to say. If you choose not to take advantage of this, that's your choice. But if you choose to use this, here are some sentences that I've found in my deck which someone was clever/cleaver in constructing.

If you'd like to copy these into your deck, feel free ...

     Bees store honey to get through winter

     mìfēng wèi guòdōng zhùcún fēngmì

     蜜蜂为过冬贮存蜂蜜

     蜜蜂為過冬貯存蜂蜜

     trick:  mìfēng vs fēngmì

     I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow
     wǒ tóu yi pèngdào zhěntou jiù shuìzháo le
     我头一碰到枕头就睡着了
     我頭一碰到枕頭就睡著了
     trick: tóu / zhěntou (although, you really should have noticed this without clever/cleaver sentences!)

     She sat there motionless, nothing can motivate her
     tā yidòng​budòng de zuò zài​nar, méiyǒu​shénme néng cùdòng tā
     她一动不动地坐在那儿，没有什么能促动她
     她一動不動地坐在那兒，沒有甚麼能促動她
     trick: yidòng​budòng / cùdòng

     If you lose a credit card you should report it to the police
     diūshī xìnyòngkǎ yào xiàng jǐngchá bàoshī
     丢失信用卡要向警察报失
     丟失信用卡要向警察報失
     trick: diūshī  / bàoshī

     Don't disappoint your parents
     bùyào gūfù fùmǔ duì nǐde qīdài
     不要辜负父母对你的期待
     不要辜負父母對你的期待
     trick: gūfù / fùmǔ

     Mr Li the shopkeeper has two assistants
     Lǐ lǎobǎn yǒu liǎng gè zhùlǐ
     李老板有两个助理
     李老闆有兩個助理
     trick: Lǐ / zhùlǐ


And here are a number of other sentences that appear in my flashcards, but I'll leave you to do the translations yourself if you want to use them. The trick might be around using the same sound, the same character, or anything else that makes it easier to recall one word using another part of the sentence:

这是违法的行为
我花了一些时间决定花钱买哪种花
我们可以推断会议推迟了
我们铸蜡成烛
纤维 / 维生素
租约下个月到期
耳朵, 耳环, 耳机, 耳语, 耳子
个人开户账户申请表
每个透支的支票
对于妇女来说就业就会有牺牲
薪水会直接汇入你的帐户
这个座位很小坐得很不舒服
非工作人员禁止进入
他们企图蒙骗公众耳目 (cheat! sounds like 'qitu')


Just to be clear ... this is not a miracle. This will not take you from a beginner to intermediate in record time. But it will make it a little easier to remember words, and since you're already investing time in learning Chinese, you may as well take advantages of clever/cleaver tricks like this.

Don't butcher it!

How many flashcards does it take to change a lightbulb?

Some people do it daily (some people wish they did it daily!), and others only do it infrequently, or even never.


For me, spending time on flashcards has become an (almost) daily routine. I have recently already written that you should just do it, about how effective it has been for me, and to tell you how to test whether you should be using flashcards - so take a look if you haven't seen those articles.

In this next in the series, I wanted to go personal (yes, even more personal than writing about my love affair - In fact, I'm going to let you look into my actual set of flashcards, through sample sentences, numbers & dates.

Deck Statistics
Anki has a feature which gives you a whole bunch of facts about your specific deck. Here are some of mine, covering the deck itself, as well as how I've used it.

total numbers

• deck created 2.1 years ago
• total number of 'facts' is 1530 (a fact contains english, pinyin, simplified hanzi and (sometimes) traditional hanzi too)
• total number of cards is 3680 (in the early days, a fact only generated two cards: english-to-pinyin & pinyin-to-english; but after a while I extended it to three: english-to-pinyin/simplified/traditional, simplified-to-english/pinyin/traditional, pinyin-to-english/simplified/traditional)
• according to Anki, 76% of my cards are 'mature' (I've basically seen these often enough that they're 'known', 6% are 'young' (I'm currently actively working through them), and 18% are unseen.

activity

• In the last week I did 500 cards, averaging about 70 a day. According to Anki, I missed one day in the last week.
• My average over the last 3 months is 45 cards a day, and over the last year is 52 cards a day. 
• Since the deck was created, I have averaged 53 cards a day, and used Anki just under 5 days a week.
• Since the beginning, I have added less than 5 cards a day, but this has only been around 2 a day in the last year. (Remember that by entering a single 'fact' Anki automatically generates a number of 'cards' - so I would say this averages about 2 new physical entries a day, that's all.)

sample entries

From humble beginnings ...

• The first six entries in my deck are:  (know / zhīdào / 知道), (formal / zhèngshì / 正式), (about / guānyú / 关于), (accept,approve / tóngyì / 同意), (after / zhīhòu / 之后), (agree / shuōhǎo / 说好).

To a long way down the line ...

• The six latest entries are:

1. profit commission adjustment request / 盈佣调整询问函
2. There were a lot of groupies at the Michael Jackson concert in Japan / 迈克尔·杰克逊在日本的演唱会招来了许多追星族
3. to accumulate over a long period of time / 日积月累
4. Unless you say it so that your word becomes another, then it's no problem / 除非你说的词变成另外一个词，否则没问题
5. tomorrow;daybreak / 明天;天明
6. You have to tighten up the handle, it has become loose / 柄松动了，你得把螺丝拧紧

I think you'll agree that I've improved my skill level over the last two years!  And don't let this mislead you ... I don't know all the latest ones. For example, I recently needed to know the word 'loose' while talking to someone and realised I didn't know how to say that. So I looked it up in the dictionary, found a good sentence, and entered it into my deck. A few weeks will pass before this sentence comes up to the top of the pack, and then I will 'learn' it through spaced-repetition.

So that's me

If you'd like to share some of your desk statistics, I'd love to see them - whether you're a beginner or really advanced.

Most interestingly, I would love it if you could leave a comment below to say what your first few words were, what your most recent entries are, and what the time period is in between.

And if you've just started a deck of your own, perhaps since reading this series on flashcards, let us know what your first few entries have been.

Getting Sentenced in Mandarin

This is another article in the Life Sentences series.  In my opening post, I wrote the following:

"Copyright acknowledgement: Over time I have collected a variety of sentences, and loaded them into my flashcard system. By this stage, I no longer have any idea where they came from. Some are of my own construction, or from friends who have emailed or instant-messaged me. Others have been copied from websites along the way. To make sure I give credit where due, the following sites are the most likely external sources ... "

The purpose of this article is to say a few words about why I bother getting sentences, and where.


Why?
Originally I used to just read the sentences and convince myself that I 'got' the structure, but over time I realised I didn't - so I then started adding entire sentences into my Anki flashcards collection. There are two major benefits to this:

• Chinese sentence constructs can be really different to English (as mentioned in my previous post). You can't just memorise lists of words and do literal word-by-word translations, it doesn't work that way.
• You should make sure you're using the words in the right context. In English, for example, there is a difference between jealousy & envy,  disinterested and uninterested - and you'll want to use the right words in Chinese too.

Where?

Daily sentences

• Whether you're a beginner just learning words, or an intermediate learning sentences, it's worthwhile subscribing to mandarin.About.com's Word of the Day. Here you can see a sample for yǐngxiǎng (影響)(影响). Almost every day, I pick a word or sentence from the email, and enter it into my flashcard system. Highly recommended.
• There are several pre-made databases for the Anki flashcard system, one of which contains 20,000 thousand sentences. Whether you set it to one new sentence a day, or many, is up to you - but start that habit today.

Rolling your own sentences

• The jukuu.com website is basically designed to take words that you input (English, Mandarin, Japanese) and track down sentences which use that word. I find that lots of the resulting sentences are too long to interest me, and often of a technology theme, but you can still get some great sentences to copy into your flashcard system. Here's a sample using the word yǐngxiǎng again.
• The nciku dictionary is one of the better web-based Mandarin/English dictionaries, and it also has a sample sentence facility - take a look at the yǐngxiǎng examples.
• I only discovered Engkoo.com while in the final draft of this article, but so far I'm very impressed.  The sentences tend to be quite long, but the front-end is quite polished. You can see the yǐngxiǎng examples here.
• iChaCha offers yet another option, neat presentation and nicely short sentences. You can also see the example sentences for yǐngxiǎng.
• Of course, you always have the option of simply entering the Chinese characters into your favourite search engine (I'm now using Bing, but you may still be using Google). It certainly takes more effort than the above options because it requires a lot more reviewing of the results to find good sentences, but maybe that's your preference.
• I have a little paper dictionary  called Collins Chinese Dictionary (in colour), which often gives sample sentences for the words I look up. 
• Finally, I have installed the free Pleco dictionary on my iPad,  which usually gives example sentences for looked-up words. For yǐngxiǎng it provides about a dozen sentences.

Pre-loved sentences

• Sometimes when I'm listening to Chinese podcasts (usually ChinesePod or Popup Chinese) I hear a sentence that I really* like - whether because it contains useful words, or has an interesting structure, or simply because I think I will use it often. I then enter a version of that sentence (English, pinyin, hanzi) into my flashcard system, and wait for it to come into the queue.
• When emailing or instant-messaging (let's pretend that's a verb, OK?)  with a Chinese friend, they might use a sentence which strikes me as likely to be of common use, or it may have interesting vocab or sentence structure. So I sometimes paste sentences like that into my flashcard collection.

If you use other sites for finding sentences, or even completely difference methods, then please leave a comment below. I hope you find this useful ...


* JP, I know you're reading this. One of the sentences coming through my flashcards at the moment is from an old ChinesePod QingWen episode with you, Connie & Amber. From that, I took this sentence: "难怪你那么佩服JP" :-)
** Some links are affiliated. 

Life Sentences - a new series

This is the first part of a new series about sentences in Mandarin Chinese.

For a few months now, I have been on a new journey in my Mandarin learning. The previous one was working through Heisig & Richardson's first book (simplified or traditional, affiliated links) on learning how to read and write Chinese. I made it through 1500 characters in about 3-4 months, and I had great support from all of you as I did so.

But now being able to read & write characters, and having learned a whole bunch of compound words (through flashcards), I have extended this into understanding how Mandarin sentences are constructed. In my opinion, this is the least intuitive part of learning Chinese, and it's what keeps me from having coversations which flow as smoothly as I'd like.

Don't believe people who tell you that Mandarin is the same as English: subject-verb-object.  I mean, it is. Kinda.

The problem is that when you first get past "I drink beer" (我喝啤酒, wǒ​ hē​ pí​jiǔ) (subject-verb-object, in both cases), things get a bit fuzzy and non-intuitive. But once you've got a feel for Chinese sentences, it starts to come back into focus, and you realise that to a large degree (again!) it is S-V-O.

Just to show you what I mean about this being non-intuitive, take a look at the following sentences, which are arranged as follows:
   English
   Simplified Chinese
   Traditional Chinese
   Pinyin
   Literal translation

S1. What should I give him as a gift?
我该送什么礼物给他?
我該送什麼禮物給他?
wǒ gāi sòng shénme lǐwù gěi tā?
(I) (should) (give) (what gift) (give him)?

S2. She enjoys sharing her experience of learning the Chinese language.
她很喜歡跟別人分享她學習中文的經驗｡
她很喜欢跟别人分享她学习中文的经验｡
Tā hěn xǐhuan gēn biérén fēnxiǎng tā xuéxí Zhōngwén de jīngyàn.
(she) (very likes) (with others) (share) (her) (study Chinese)'s (experience).

S3. People who want a tattoo must go to a proper tatto parlour.
要文身的人, 必须去专业的文身店｡
要文身的人, 必須去專業的文身店｡
yào​ wén​shēn​ de rén​, bì​xū​ qù​ zhuān​yè​ de wén​shēn​ diàn​.
(want tattoo)'s (people), (must) (go to) (professional)'s (tattoo parlour)


Certainly not intuitive, but definitely learnable.


The purpose of this series is to get you as quickly from the "newbie S-V-O" to the "more advanced S-V-O" phase, without getting too stuck in the middle. And this is as much to document my learning for myself, as it is to share my learning for your benefit.


To make sure you don't miss out, ensure you subscribe to Mandarin Segments. I look forward to your active participation.

Copyright acknowledgement: Over time I have collected a variety of sentences, and loaded them into my flashcard system. By this stage, I no longer have any idea where they came from. Some are of my own construction, or from friends who have emailed or instant-messaged me. Others have been copied from websites along the way. To make sure I give credit where due, the following sites are the most likely external sources:
   About Mandarin
   JuKuu
   iChaCha
   Engkoo
   Bing Search
   20,000 Mandarin Sentences
   Nciku Dictionary
   ChinesePod
   Popup Chinese
   Collins (paper) dictionary


Articles in the Life Sentences series so far:

• Getting Sentenced in Mandarin: where to get sample sentences

To see all posts in the "Life Sentences" series, click here.