Practise the thinking. Keep the judgement.
Chinese sentence structure
Original Chinese study material with English explanations. Simplified Chinese with pinyin; beginner, intermediate and advanced are editorial difficulty labels.
Begin with subject + verb + object. Time and the place where an action happens usually come before the main verb. A time phrase can also introduce the whole sentence.
我每天读中文。
Wǒ měitiān dú Zhōngwén.
I read Chinese every day.
她下午在家学习。
Tā xiàwǔ zài jiā xuéxí.
She studies at home in the afternoon.
Do not move every English prepositional phrase before the verb: destinations and result complements follow different patterns.
Try it
Choose “I study Chinese at school.”
- 我在学校学中文。
- 我学在学校中文。
- 我中文学校在学。
Answer and explanation
我在学校学中文。. 在学校 gives the location before the verb 学; 中文 is its object.