Zhèli yǒu: The Chinese verb yǒu sometimes means "to have" and sometimes means "to be" in the sense of "to exist". In exchange 1, yǒu has the latter meaning. With this meaning, it often translates into English as "there is/are."

Topic-comment sentences: The subject of a Chinese sentence need not be the person who performs an action or experiences a state. Often, the relation ship between the subject and the rest of the sentence Is looser and can be analyzed as topic-comment.

A topic is a word or phrase at the beginning of a sentence which sets the scene for the rest of the sentence. The topic is a starting point for understanding a sentence, giving background Information and establishing the perspective for listeners. For this reason, time and place phrases are often used as topics.

A comment is the rest of the sentence which follows the topic. Here are some examples:

Clearly, the last two examples are meaningful only when the relationship between the initial nouns/pronouns and verbs is understood to be one of topic-comment, not the usual subject-predicate relation of actor-action.

While there is no single rule that tells you when to use topic-comment sentences in Chinese, some helpful generalizations can be made. These generalizations will be discussed as example-sentences appear in the Reference lists.

Jiù zài nàli, "They are right over here": You have learned jiù as "only," a synonym of zhǐ. In exchange 1, you see another use of jiù: "right," "exactly," "precisely." This word is often used to describe "right" where something is, and is followed by zài, "in/on."

Yǒu...méiyǒu: The first sentence in exchange 2 is a yes/no-choice question. This type of question is formed "by explicitly offering the listener a choice between an affirmative and a negative answer. The negative alternative is tacked onto the end of the sentence. Similar questions exist in English. But the English question would be an impatient one, while the Chinese question is an ordinary on:

Zhèli yǒu Yīngwén bào méiyou?

Are there say English-language newspaper here, or aren't there?

Neutral tones: Whether or not a syllable is pronounced in the Neutral tone often depends on the speed of speech and the mood the speaker is trying to convey, In informal conversation between native speakers, there are many more Neutral tones than in the more careful, deliberate speech of a language teacher speaking to foreign student . (Bear this point in mind when you find a discrepancy between the textbook marking of a word and the pronunciation of that word on tape.)

Most syllables in any stretch of spoken Chinese are neither completely ”Neutral” (i. e., with no audible change in pitch for the duration of the syllable) nor completely "full" in length and amplitude, These syllables will usually be somewhere in between the two extremes.

Zhèli yǒu Yīngwen bào meiyou? Are there any English-language newspapers here?

Zhěli yǒu Yīngwén bào méiyou"?

Often a syllable will not Bound like a full tone. But if you ask "Then is this syllable in the Neutral tone?" the answer will be "No, not exactly." There is no distinct dividing line between a syllable with a tone and a syllable in the Neutral tone. Very often, the most helpful answer to the question "Should this be pronounced in the Neutral tone?" is "Pronounce it the way you hear it." The language is taught in terms of four tones, but your ears hear more.

The auxiliary verb xiǎng is sometimes translated as "would like to" or "to want to." Here are some examples of translations you have learned for xiǎng;

Zhège duōshao qián? In Chinese sentences that ask for and give prices, the word shì is usually omitted.

shì reappears, however, in negative and contrastive sentences: Zhège bú shì sìkuài qián, shì wǔkuài qián. "This (item) isn't four dollars; it's five dollars."

Wǔkuài qián literally means "five dollars money." The counter -kuài, "dollars," indicates the units of the general class "money" that are being counted (i.e., dollars as opposed to cents.)

Notice in the sentence Zhège Zhōngwén bào duōshao qián? that the general counter -ge is used rather than the specific counter -fèn, "copy." The counter -ge is often used in talking about the KIND of thing. In this case the question is about the price of ea newspaper as a publication, not about the price of a copy. The specific counter would be used to talk about a particular concrete object, as in a sentence like: "This copy of the China Post is torn."

Yífèn: In Chinese, when you talk about the unit price of an item, the unit is a counter. Notice that yífèn comes at the end of the sentence, just as "copy" does in English.

Mài, "to sell," differs from the word mǎi, "to buy," only in its tone.

Nǐmen zhèli, "your place here," literally, "you here": Use Nǐmen zhèli when talking to someone who represents a stores a bank, or other institutions. By putting zhèli (zhèr), "here," or nàli (nàr), "there," after a person's name or a pronoun, you make a phrase referring to a place associated with the person. For example, nì nàli means "over there where you are now," and wǒ zhèli means "here where I am now," Use these phrases when you want to express the idea of an item being close to a person (not necessarily ownership).

Nǐ nàli yǒu bǐ méiou? Do you have a pen over there? (i.e., Is there a pen over there where you are?")

This kind of phrase is also used to mean a person's home: nǐ nàli, "your place" (used when the speaker is not at "your house"); wǒ zhèli: "my place" (used when the speaker is at home.)

A: Chén xǎojiě zài náli? Where is Miss Chén?

B: Tā zài Liú tàitài nàli She is at Mrs. Liú house.

Nǐmen zhèli mài Měiguó zázhì bu mài? In this sentence, Nǐmen zhèli is used as a topic. Literally, the sentence means: "As for your place here, are American magazines sold?"

The counter běn, "volume", "copy," is used for both books and magazines.

Duìbuqǐ, literally means "unable to face (you)." This word is used to say "I'm sorry" when you bump into a person, arrive late, and so on. It is not the word for "I'm sorry" when you sympathize with someone else's misfortune (e.g., when a relative dies.)

Měiguó shū wǒmen bú mài.: In this sentence, Měiguó shū, the object of the verb mài, occurs at the beginning, in topic position. Here the order of the sentence element is : topic - subject - verb. Some speakers of English use the same word order. Compare:

Notice that bú mài is not the ending of a yes/no-choice question. The phrase keeps its tones in this sentence.

Yígòng, "altogether,": In totaling something up, the items being totaled begin the sentence, in topic position, and are followed by the adverb Yígòng.

shénme dìtú literally means "what map?." In exchange 11, this phrase is used to mean "what kind of map."

yìzhāng: the counter -zhāng is used for flat objects. Literally, yìzhāng Táiběi dìtú means "one sheet Taipei map." In exchange 11, the phrase is translated as "a map of Taipei."

Zhèzhāng dìtú: compare the two phrases which follow.

In the first phrase, the counter -zhāng does not have a number in front of it. In effect, the number 1 was dropped after the specifier zhè. Notice that when a specifier and a number occur together in Chinese, the word order is just like English: Zhè liǎngzhāng dìtú, "these two maps."

Notes on additional required vocabulary:

bàozhǐ and bào, two words for "newspaper," are interchangeable.

Yìzhī bǐ: The counter for pens, -zhī, is the counter for straight, stick-like objects.

Hàn-Yīng zìdiǎn, Yīng-Hàn zìdiǎn: The word for "Chinese" in these expressions comes from the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D. 219.) Hàn is often used in titles to refer to the Chinese people and their language.