Ch 11 · Lesson 10

Zhe nominaliser

Prescribed by the AQA specification.

The short version

(zhě) turns a verb into the person who does it

?Zhè běn shū de zuòzhě shì shéi?

Who is the author of this book?
Why?

(zhě) works like English -er: (dúzhě), reader; (jìzhě), journalist; (zuòzhě), author. Those are everyday words. New ones on two-syllable verbs, such as (shǐyòngzhě), user, sound written: in speech say (shǐyòng de rén).

(qiánzhě) and (hòuzhě): the former, the latter

,。Zhè liǎng ge bànfǎ dōu xíng, wǒ xuǎn hòuzhě.

Both methods work; I'll go for the latter.
Why?

For two things just mentioned, (qiánzhě) is the first and (hòuzhě) the second, exactly like English 'the former' and 'the latter'. They pick between two only, and (hòuzhě) has nothing to do with (yǐhòu), afterwards.

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.

Read the full article · 3 min read

Practice

Practise this lesson

10-question session

One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 12 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.

Lesson 10 of 15 in this chapter

Back to the curriculum

What do the colours mean?