Mandarin · Chapter 7 · Lesson 12 · Grammar primer

Dajia and ziji

Grammar for HSK 2.

The short version

大家 (dàjiā) never takes a plural marker

大家 (dà jiā) already means 'everyone' as a whole group, so 大家们 (dà jiā men) is not standard Mandarin. It behaves like a subject pronoun and goes straight in front of the verb, very often paired with 都 (dōu): 大家都很高兴 (dà jiā dōu hěn gāo xìng), everyone is happy.

大家都知道这件事。 Dàjiā dōu zhīdào zhè jiàn shì.

Everyone knows about this.

自己 (zìjǐ) never changes for person

English needs a different word for myself, yourself and himself; Mandarin needs exactly one. The same 自己 (zì jǐ) follows 我 (wǒ), 你 (nǐ), 他 (tā) or anyone else - there is no separate form to learn for each person.

你要相信自己。 Nǐ yào xiāngxìn zìjǐ.

You have to believe in yourself.

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 · 4 min read

Practice

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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 12 of 12 in this chapter

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