Ch 10 · Lesson 5Mandarin · Chapter 10 · Lesson 5 · Grammar primer
Verb reduplication
Prescribed by the AQA specification.
The short version
Say a verb twice and it becomes a quick go
。Nǐ kànkan zhè běn shū.
Why?Hide
Doubling a verb does not change what it means, only the size of the event: short, casual, nothing much asked. (kàn) is look; (kànkan) is have a look. That is why it softens a request: (nǐ shuōshuo), go on, tell us, is warmer than a bare (nǐ shuō).
。Qǐng děng yíxià.
Why?Hide
(yíxià), one go, does nearly what doubling does: (děng yíxià), wait a moment. With a stranger or at work it is the safe choice. For a quick action already done, (le) goes before it: (wǒ xiǎng le yíxià), I thought for a moment.
In the past,
。Tā kàn le kàn wǒ.
Why?Hide
A one-syllable verb doubles three ways: (kànkan) and (kàn yi kàn), have a look, and for something already done, (kàn le kàn), had a look. This past (le) sits in the middle, not after the pair. The second copy is said light, with no tone.
Two-syllable verbs repeat whole: ABAB, not AABB
。Wǒmen xiūxi xiūxi ba.
Why?Hide
(xiūxi), rest, doubles as (xiūxi xiūxi), never as AABB, which is the adjective pattern: (gāogāoxìngxìng), happily. Verb + object words double the verb half only: (liáotiān) becomes (liáoliao tiān), have a chat.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
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Lesson 5 of 16 in this chapter