Ch 4 · Lesson 14Mandarin · Chapter 4 · Lesson 14 · Grammar primer
Numbers time dates
Prescribed by the AQA specification.
The short version
The time goes before the verb, never at the end
。Wǒmen wǎnshang qī diǎn jiànmiàn.
Why?Hide
English puts 'tomorrow' and 'at seven' at the end; Mandarin puts them after the subject, before the verb: (wǒ míngtiān qù Běijīng), I'm going to Beijing tomorrow. The time can also open the sentence: (míngtiān wǒ qù Běijīng). Bigger time comes first: (míngtiān wǎnshang qī diǎn), 7 pm tomorrow.
Two o'clock is
。Xiànzài liǎng diǎn bàn.
Why?Hide
A time is the hour + (diǎn) and the minutes + (fēn): (sān diǎn wǔ fēn), 3:05. (diǎn) counts hours like a measure word, so a lone two before it is (liǎng). Inside a longer number the two stays (èr): (shí'èr diǎn), twelve o'clock. Half past is (bàn).
Dates run big to small: year, month, day
。Jīntiān shì èryuè shíwǔ hào.
Why?Hide
Mandarin dates reverse the British order: year + (nián), month + (yuè), day + (hào), or (rì) in writing. A month is a name, not a count, so February is (èryuè), not (liǎng yuè). The week is (xīngqī) + a number, and Sunday is (xīngqītiān).
Say
。Zhège sān kuài wǔ.
Why?Hide
The yuan is (kuài) when you say a price and (yuán) on the tag; a tenth of a yuan is (máo) said, (jiǎo) written. When (máo) comes last it drops: (sān kuài wǔ) is 3.50. Two yuan is (liǎng kuài), with the (liǎng) of two things.
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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One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 19 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.
Lesson 14 of 21 in this chapter