Verbs that take double objects

There are some common verbs in Chinese that can take two objects. In this article, we will look at how they are used.

Structure

As in English, some verbs in Chinese take two objects. A typical example for English is "to bake someone a cake," and there are countless more. The structure in Chinese is:

If you don't know what direct and indirect objects are, don't worry - the terms can be thought of as "object 1" and "object 2." The main point is that there are two of them. A simple way to think about it is that the direct object is the thing that the action happens to (e.g. the cake that gets baked) while the indirect object is the recipient of the direct object (e.g. the person the cake is given to).

Examples

老师，我可以问你一个问题吗？
Lǎoshī, wǒ kěyǐ wèn nǐ yī gè wèntí ma?
Teacher, may I ask you a question?
大家都叫他 “怪叔叔”。
Dàjiā dōu jiào tā "guài shūshu."
Everyone calls him "Uncle Weirdo."
我想告诉你一个好消息。
Wǒ xiǎng gàosu nǐ yī gè hǎo xiāoxi.
I want to tell you the good news.
他们给了你多少钱？
Tāmen gěi le nǐ duōshao qián?
How much money did they give you?
他送了女朋友很多花。
Tā sòng le nǚpéngyou hěn duō huā.
He gave his girlfriend lots of flowers.
我想送给你一本书。
Wǒ xiǎng sòng gěi nǐ yī běn shū.
I want to give you a book.
爸爸要送给我一个很贵的生日礼物。
Bàba yào sòng gěi wǒ yī gè hěn guì de shēngrì lǐwù.
My dad is going to give me a very expensive birthday gift.
你可以借我两千块钱吗？
Nǐ kěyǐ jiè wǒ liǎng qiān kuài qián ma?
Can you lend me 2000 kuai?
老板刚发给我上个月的工资。
Lǎobǎn gāng fā gěi wǒ shàng gè yuè de gōngzī.
The boss just gave me my pay for last month.
这个人骗了我很多钱。
Zhège rén piàn le wǒ hěn duō qián.
This person cheated me out of a lot of money.

Verbs that take double objects

Structure

Examples

Sources and further reading

Websites

Books