Mandarin · Chapter 1 · Lesson 9 · Grammar primer

Ye and dou

Grammar for HSK 1.

The short version

也 (yě) goes before the verb, never at the end

English puts 'too' at the end of the sentence, so learners write 我喜欢咖啡也 (wǒ xǐhuan kāfēi yě). It is wrong: 也 (yě) is an adverb, and Mandarin adverbs sit after the subject and straight before the verb. If there is a 想 (xiǎng) or 要 (yào), 也 (yě) goes in front of that.

我也想去中国。 Wǒ yě xiǎng qù Zhōngguó.

I want to go to China too.

都 (dōu) sums up what is on its left

都 (dōu, all, both) sits before the verb and gathers up the group named before it: 我们都去 (wǒmen dōu qù), we are all going. Read 都 (dōu) and 不 (bù) left to right: 我们都不是老师 (wǒmen dōu bú shì lǎoshī) means none of us is a teacher, 我们不都是老师 (wǒmen bù dōu shì lǎoshī) means not all of us are.

我们也都喜欢咖啡。 Wǒmen yě dōu xǐhuan kāfēi.

We all like coffee too.

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 24 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.

Lesson 9 of 21 in this chapter

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