From the appearance, the foreign students who learn in Chinese language school can see that both phrase 客人来了and 来客人了 are composed of the same words with the similar meanings. However, the different structures lead to the different meanings they expressed. In order to express meanings correctly and apply them properly to the daily conversation, the learners should know the difference between them.
First of all, the structure of 客人来了is subject-predicate while that of 来客人了is object stricture. In Chinese language, the subject always indicates the known information while the object implies the unknown new information. As a result, when single noun indicates things in the place of the subject, it is usually assured. However, the noun in the place of object is indeterminate. After understanding the theoretical knowledge of the application, the specific meanings of both 客人来了and 来客人了 will be explained as follows.
When you say 客人来了, it indicates that both the speaker and hearer know there are guests will come to visit, what’s more, they all know which one or ones. However, if both parties do not expect guests to visit but the guests do really come, we should use 来客人了. In addition, students who attend to school to study Mandarin should know that the words indicating the location can be used before 来客人了. For instance, 他家来客人了.
Just as we mentioned above, the objects in Chinese language has indefiniteness. Therefore, the words of indefinite number often appear in the sentence. Here are several examples to illustrate it. 他带来一个朋友and我想出了一个极好的办法. The foreign students who learn Chinese online free may know that the objects should be used at the beginning of the sentence as topic if it is definite like 那天他的言辞我怎么也想不起来了. In addition, the sentence of 把 structure can be used such as 快把桌子上的东西放下来.
Therefore, even though they are similar in appearance, they have different meanings and should be used in different situations. And you can understand and use them correctly after the illustration above.