Aspect particle "zhe"

The particle 着 (zhe) is one way of indicating the continuous aspect in Mandarin Chinese (another common way is using the adverb 在 in front of verbs). You may have heard that the Chinese particle 着 added onto the end of verbs is similar to the use of -ing in English. This isn't particularly helpful, however, because the use of 着 in Chinese is not nearly so frequent and can also be quite idiomatic.

Contents

Basic Usage

The idea here is that the action won't just happen and stop immediately; it will continue for a while.

Structure

Examples

This basic pattern is often used with commands involving certain verbs where the action persists for a while.

Used for Manner or State in which an Action is Performed

Structure

Note that the first verb (followed by 着) describes the state; the second verb is the action verb. In this case, the "-ing" translation can be useful.

Examples

Note: If you want to make a sentence where both verbs are action verbs (neither is truly a state), then you don't want this pattern; you want 一边⋯⋯，一边⋯⋯.

Used for Continuous State

While it's true that the "full progressive pattern" can make use of 着, this is not a pattern you're going to want to use all the time. The most commonly used verbs are the ones below:

Examples

Colloquial Saying

Certain verbs tend to take 着 more frequently than others, and what the 着 exactly is doing might not be apparent at all. It's best to think of these usages as colloquialisms. You can even think of them as set phrases.

Examples of this usage:

There's also one colloquial usage of 着 that's been chosen by at least one textbook for special treatment, so we'll cover it here as well:

This pattern may look like that "doing an action in a particular state" pattern already covered above, but in practice it doesn't really work that way. It just means "[Verb] for fun" or "[Verb] as a joke."

Examples of this usage:

See also

Sources and further reading

Books