Mandarin · Chapter 28 · Lesson 3 · Grammar primer
Existential presentative
Grammar for HSK 4.
The short version
Brand-new things go after the verb, not before
Mandarin sorts nouns by whether the listener already knows them. 我的朋友来了 (wǒ de péng yǒu lái le) fronts a friend we both know; 来了一个人 (lái le yí gè rén) puts the newcomer after the verb because they are fresh information. 一个人来了 (yí gè rén lái le) parses, but it quietly claims you were expecting that particular person.
来了一个人。 lái le yí gè rén.
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 · 10 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 24 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.
Lesson 3 of 10 in this chapter