Kilo Lingo

Ch 4 · Lesson 19

Location and existence

Prescribed by the AQA specification.

The short version

(zài) for where a thing is, (yǒu) for what is there

。Zhuōzi shang yǒu yí ge shǒujī.

There's a phone on the table.
Why?

Subject + (zài) + place answers 'where is X?': (shǒujī zài zhuōzi shang). Place + (yǒu) + thing answers 'what is at X?': (zhuōzi shang yǒu yí ge shǒujī), and what follows (yǒu) is usually new to the listener. For a phone you both know about, put it first and use (zài): (nàge shǒujī zài zhuōzi shang).

The position word goes after the noun: (zhuōzi shang)

。Shǒujī zài zhuōzi shang.

The phone is on the table.
Why?

English says 'on the table'; Mandarin says 'table-on': (zhuōzi shang). A table is a thing, not a place, so (shū zài zhuōzi) is wrong: it needs its (shang). The same goes for (xià), under, and (li), in: (bīngxiāng li), in the fridge. On their own, with no noun in front, use the long forms: (shàngmian), (lǐmian).

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 · 5 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 26 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.

Lesson 19 of 21 in this chapter

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