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Lesson 18 – Advanced – Important Chinese Grammar 依然

In order to make sure the foreign learners have a better understanding on Chinese language and speak it correctly, they need to learn some important grammar points. The word 好is one of the words foreigners often see when they are learning Mandarin Chinese. When it is articulated in the falling tone, it functions as a verb meaning to love or like. But it is usually used in oral Chinese, having the opposite meaning with 恶. For example, 老大爷在外面好管闲事,遇到什么不合理的事情都要说几句.

You may also often see the structure 有…之说when you are reading Chinese books. 说here means 说法, a kind of statement. Then 有…之说 means that there is a fixed statement on something. For instance, 古人认为年轻时应该刻苦努力,所以有”少壮不努力,老大徒伤悲”之说.

依然is an adverb indicating something always maintains unchanged, or even there are some changes, it will be recovered to the former state. In order to make it easier for the foreign students who learn Chinese online free to understand it, they can use it by making comparison with “still” in English. We can say毕业十多年了,他依然跟过去的同学们保持着密切的联系.

The character 番seems a little confusing to the learners. It is a measure word with several applications. First of all, it can be used to describe the thoughts, words and scenes and so on. In this case, the numerals are limited as 一and几. For example, 经过在商场上的几番较量之后,他们倒成了无话不谈的朋友. Teachers inqualified Mandarin program may tell you thart it can be also used to indicate times, the same as 回and遍. The fixed sayings you often see are 三番五次and几次三番. Being placed after the verb, it indicates multiple like 我们公司今年的营业额比去年翻了两番.

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