Ch 11 · Lesson 14Mandarin · Chapter 11 · Lesson 14 · Grammar primer
Topic comment fronting
Prescribed by the AQA specification.
The short version
A fronted topic leaves no
。Zhè běn shū wǒ kàn guo.
Why?Hide
(zhè běn shū wǒ kàn guo) puts the object first and leaves the gap after the verb empty. English says 'this book, I've read it', so learners add (tā): (zhè běn shū wǒ kàn guo tā). The topic has already named the book; the comment does not repeat it.
The topic can be a whole, the comment a part
。Běijīng dōngtiān hěn lěng.
Why?Hide
A topic does not have to be the object. (Běijīng dōngtiān hěn lěng) puts Beijing first and then says its winters are cold; (tā gèzi hěn gāo), he's tall, works the same way. English needs a possessive, Beijing's winters; Mandarin puts the whole first.
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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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 13 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.
Lesson 14 of 15 in this chapter