Mandarin · Chapter 14 · Lesson 14 · Grammar primer
Noun suffixes zi jia yuan
Grammar for HSK 3.
The short version
子 (zi) turns a root into an everyday object
Stuck onto a one-syllable root, 子 (zi, neutral tone in this role) builds the plain word for a physical thing or a family member: 桌 (zhuō) becomes 桌子 (zhuō zi), 房 (fáng) becomes 房子 (fáng zi), 儿 (ér) becomes 儿子 (ér zi). It is one of the commonest noun endings in everyday Mandarin, so a new one-syllable root for an everyday object is worth trying with 子 (zǐ) first.
这是我的桌子。 Zhè shì wǒ de zhuōzi.
员 (yuán) covers a paid job or an unpaid member
服务员 (fú wù yuán) and 售货员 (shòu huò yuán) are paid roles, but 队员 (duì yuán) and 成员 (chéng yuán) are simply members of a group with no wage attached. The thread running through every 员 (yuán) word is 'a person who is officially part of this system' - guess that meaning first when you meet an unfamiliar one.
我们队有十名队员。 Wǒmen duì yǒu shí míng duìyuán.
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 · 7 min readPractice
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 28 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.
Lesson 14 of 14 in this chapter