Chinese word order: SVO, time-place-manner and topic-comment

Good news: in Chinese, verbs don't conjugate. No "I eat, he eats", no irregular past tenses. Nouns have no gender and no compulsory plural. No articles "the, a".

So how do you know who does what, and when? Through word order, which is much more fixed than in English. In Chinese, a word's position tells you its role. Change the order and you often change the meaning, or make the sentence wrong.

The general principle, found everywhere: modifiers come before what they modify. Adjective before noun (好人, a good person), time and place before the verb (我明天在家吃饭), relative clause before the noun (我买的书, the book I bought).

Once you grasp this principle, 80% of Chinese grammar starts to make sense.

As in English, the basic Chinese sentence follows Subject + Verb + Object (SVO) order:

• 我 喜欢 音乐。 I like music.

• 妈妈 做 饭。 Mum cooks.

• 我们 学习 汉语。 We study Chinese.

Adjectives used as predicates work like verbs: no 是 (to be) needed. You usually add 很 (very), which has largely lost its strong meaning:

• ✗ 我是忙。 → ✓ 我很忙。 I'm busy.

• ✗ 天气是好。 → ✓ 天气很好。 The weather is nice.

是 shì links two nouns (A = B):

• 我是英国人。 I'm British.

• 他是我的老师。 He's my teacher.

Negation goes right before the verb (or adjective): 不 for present/future/habits, 没 for completed past actions and with 有.

• 我不喝咖啡。 I don't drink coffee.

• 我没去。 I didn't go.

• 我没有钱。 I have no money.

This is the major difference from English. In English you say "I'm eating at the restaurant tomorrow": the details follow the verb. In Chinese, they go before the verb, in a set order:

Subject + Time + Manner/With whom + Place + Verb + Object

• 我 明天 在饭馆 吃饭。 I'm eating at a restaurant tomorrow.

• 他 每天 坐地铁 上班。 He goes to work by metro every day.

• 我 下午 跟朋友 在咖啡馆 聊天。 This afternoon I'm chatting with friends at a café.

Time can also go before the subject, to highlight it or set the scene:

• 明天我在家。 = 我明天在家。 Tomorrow I'll be at home.

But never after the verb:

✗ 我吃饭在饭馆明天。

✓ 我明天在饭馆吃饭。

Think of a Chinese sentence as a film: first the when, then the how/with whom, then the where, and finally the action. The scene is set before the action begins.

Not everything goes before the verb. Some elements, called complements (补语 bǔyǔ), come after the verb, because they describe the result or extent of the action:

• Duration: 我学了两年汉语。 I studied Chinese for two years.

• Frequency: 我去过三次。 I've been there three times.

• Result: 我听懂了。 I understood (by listening). 作业写完了。 I've finished the homework.

• Direction: 他走进来了。 He came in (towards me).

• Degree / evaluated manner (with 得): 他说得很快。 He speaks fast.

Compare:

• 我在北京工作。 I work in Beijing. (place = before the verb)

• 我工作了三年。 I worked for three years. (duration = after the verb)

The logic: before the verb, you set the frame of the action (when, where, how). After the verb, you say what the action produced (how long, what result, to what degree).

In English, you invert or add "do" to ask a question and move the question word to the front ("Where are you going?"). In Chinese, word order doesn't change.

1. Add 吗 at the end (yes/no question):

• 你是学生。→ 你是学生吗? Are you a student?

2. Replace the unknown element with a question word, in the same position:

• 你去北京。→ 你去哪儿? Where are you going?

• 他是老师。→ 谁是老师? Who is the teacher?

• 你明天来。→ 你什么时候来? When are you coming?

• 这是书。→ 这是什么? What's this?

Very handy: take the expected answer, swap the unknown word for 什么, 谁, 哪儿, 几, 多少, 什么时候, 怎么… and you have your question.

3. Affirmative-negative form (V不V):

• 你去不去? Are you going or not?

• 你是不是老师? Are you a teacher or not?

4. 呢 to bounce the question back:

• 我很好，你呢? I'm fine, and you?

Careful: never use 吗 together with a question word. ✗ 你去哪儿吗? → ✓ 你去哪儿?

Chinese is often described as a topic-prominent language. You start by announcing what you're talking about (the topic), then say something about it (the comment). The topic isn't necessarily the grammatical subject.

• 这本书我看过。 This book, I've read (it).

• 北京我去过两次。 Beijing, I've been (there) twice.

• 中国菜我最喜欢饺子。 Chinese food: my favourite is dumplings.

• 大象鼻子很长。 Elephants, (their) trunks are long.

Spoken English does this too: "That film, I really didn't like it." In Chinese, though, this construction is completely standard, in speech and writing, and needs no resumptive pronoun ("it").

It's used to:

• pick up something already mentioned: A: 你看过这个电影吗? B: 这个电影我看过。

• contrast two things: 苹果我喜欢，香蕉我不喜欢。 Apples I like; bananas, I don't.

When you hear a sentence that seems to "start with the object", think topic-comment!

To say where something is and what there is somewhere, Chinese uses two mirror-image structures. They nicely illustrate the "known → new" logic.

1. Known thing + 在 + place: "X is at such a place".

• 我的手机在桌子上。 My phone is on the table.

• 洗手间在哪儿? Where's the toilet?
Here we're talking about a specific, already identified object.

2. Place + 有 + new thing: "In such a place, there is X".

• 桌子上有一个手机。 There's a phone on the table.

• 我家附近有一个超市。 There's a supermarket near my place.
The place comes first, like a topic; the new thing, often with a number and measure word, comes after 有. It's the equivalent of "there is".

Location words go after the noun, like postpositions: 桌子上 (on the table), 房间里 (in the room), 学校旁边 (next to the school), 银行对面 (opposite the bank). English says "on the table"; Chinese says "table-top".

Common mistakes:

• ✗ 有一个手机在桌子上。 → ✓ 桌子上有一个手机。

• ✗ 在桌子上有一个手机。 → ✓ 桌子上有一个手机。 (no 在 before the place in a 有 sentence)

• ✗ 一个手机在桌子上。 → sounds odd: an indefinite thing is introduced with 有.

Back to the big principle: modifiers come first. This also applies inside noun phrases, which is especially striking with relative clauses ("the man who is talking").

• Adjective + (的) + noun: 好朋友 (a good friend), 很漂亮的衣服 (very pretty clothes).

• Possessor + 的 + noun: 我的书 (my book), 老师的车 (the teacher's car).

• Relative clause + 的 + noun: 我昨天买的书 (the book I bought yesterday), 在那儿说话的人 (the person talking over there).

The longer the modifier, the longer you wait to find out what's being talked about: 我在北京认识的那个法国朋友, "that French friend I met in Beijing". The head word, 朋友, comes right at the end.

Reading tip: when facing a long sentence, look for 的 and then the noun after it: that's the core. Everything before 的 describes it. (See our guide on 的, 得 and 地.)