Mandarin · Chapter 5 · Lesson 17 · Grammar primer
Co verbs
Grammar for HSK 2.
The short version
The prepositional phrase goes before the verb
Mandarin's co-verbs (从 (cóng), 到 (dào), 在 (zài), 用 (yòng), 坐 (zuò), 给 (gěi)) carry their own object in front of the main verb, the reverse of English. 'I eat at home' comes out as I-at-home-eat. The negator attaches to the co-verb, not the verb behind it: 我不在家吃饭 (wǒ bú zài jiā chī fàn), never 我在家不吃饭 (wǒ zài jiā bù chī fàn).
我在家吃饭。 Wǒ zài jiā chī fàn.
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 17 of 22 in this chapter