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Personal Pronouns and How 们 Works

Saying No to Actions: 别 and 不要

Commands, Suggestions, and the Softening 吧

The Particle 呢 and Asking Follow-up Questions

Question Words: 谁, 什么, 哪, 哪儿, 几, 多少, 怎么, 为什么, 怎么样

Yes and No Questions: The Particle 吗 and the A-not-A Pattern

Negation: 不 versus 没(有)

The Verb 有: Having and Existing

Adjective Predicates: Why 很 Appears and 是 Does Not

The 是 Sentence: Saying A is B

Where Time, Place, and Manner Go in a Sentence

Chinese Sentence Structure: The Shape of a Mandarin Sentence

Chinese sentence structure follows a few steady patterns: SVO word order, time and place before the verb, topic first. Learn the shape once, reuse it everywhere.

Abbreviations and Clipping (北大, 高铁, 央视)

Loanwords: How Foreign Words Enter Chinese by Sound or by Meaning

Reduplication: Repeating Words for Verbs, Adjectives, and Nouns

Prefixes and Suffixes

The Verbs That Split Apart

Building Words from Characters

Why Most Modern Chinese Words Have Two Characters

Simplified and Traditional Characters: A Short Orientation

Guessing Characters You've Never Seen

Radicals and What They Tell You About Meaning

How a Character is Built: Strokes, Components, and Stroke Order

Tone Changes (Sandhi): The Third-Tone Shift, and How 不 and 一 Change