Mandarin · Chapter 4 · Lesson 8 · Grammar primer
Xihuan and ai
Grammar for HSK 1.
The short version
爱 (ài) is stronger than English 'love' suggests
With a noun object, Mandarin keeps 爱 (ài) for people you are close to, a country, or a genuine passion - not the casual 'I love pizza' English throws around. For a food you simply enjoy, 喜欢 (xǐ huan) is the natural choice. Before a verb 爱 (ài) relaxes: 我爱跑步 (wǒ ài pǎo bù) is fine, it just sounds keener than 我喜欢跑步 (wǒ xǐ huan pǎo bù).
我喜欢跑步。 Wǒ xǐhuan pǎobù.
喜欢 (xǐ huan) takes a verb directly, no linking word
Both verbs can take a whole activity as their object with nothing between the two verbs - no equivalent of English 'to' or '-ing'. 我喜欢游泳 (wǒ xǐ huan yóu yǒng) is complete as it stands for 'I like swimming'. You will also hear 我喜欢去游泳 (wǒ xǐ huan qù yóu yǒng), which is fine, but the 去 (qù) means 'go', it is not a linking word.
她爱唱歌。 Tā ài chàng gē.
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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Lesson 8 of 12 in this chapter