All patterns
Sentence Structure
How Chinese sentences are built — word order, topic-comment, and stringing verbs together.
Sentence Structure 7
Basic Chinese sentences are Subject + Verb + Object — the same order as English. The catch: everything you add later (time, place, 也) goes BEFORE the verb.
的 (de) is Chinese's all-purpose possessive — like English “'s”, but broader. Owner + 的 + Thing: 我的书 (my book), 老师的车 (the teacher's car).
For close relationships (family, partners, close friends) and institutions (school, work), Chinese drops the possessive 的: it's 我妈, not 我的妈. Keeping 的 sounds oddly distant.
有 (yǒu) is the verb “to have”: Subject + 有 + Object (我有钱 = “I have money”). Its one quirk — it's negated with 没, not 不: 没有.
都 (dōu) means “all” — and “both”, and (with a negative) “neither”. The catch: it goes AFTER the subject, never up front like English “all”.
也 (yě) means “also” or “too” — and it always sits before the verb, never at the end like English. The same 也 covers “either” in negatives.
Add 吧 (ba) to the end of a sentence to turn a blunt command into a gentle suggestion — 我们走吧 (“let's go”), 坐吧 (“have a seat”). The soft, friendly particle.
Reading about grammar is not the same as using it.
The Merry Mandarin app turns every pattern here into spaced-repetition practice, native audio and graded stories — until it becomes instinct.