When the foreign students learn Mandarin in China, they may be wondering what are the words used to express the meaning of some certain senses. Today we are going to learn some words to express certain meaning of experience, comparison and reason. The respective three words are曾经,不如and由于. Now let’s see them one by one.

The first word is 曾经 which is used to indicate the experience of someone or somebody has gone through something. The word 曾经 expresses the action or situation which one has experienced. One can regard the literal meaning of the word as once. It is often used before a verb and the words 过and 了often follow the word曾经. Thus, the expression structure is In the Chinese language, the word 曾经can not be used in the negative forms in the sentence. If one wants to express the meaning that one has not experienced something, one can use the expression structure没(有)+动词verb +过or the structure 不曾+动词verb+过. The latter expression structure is often used in the written language. For example, the sentence 我的朋友曾经在东北呆过两年my friend once stayed for two years in northeast China use the word 曾经 to express the meaning that the friend has the experience of staying at northeast China.

Now let’s move to the second word of the language point. The second word is 不如 and the literal meaning of the word is that one thing is not comparable to another. The word is used to compare different things. The former things or people compared are not comparable to the latter ones. for example, the sentence 我的汉语不如他们的英语流利 applies the word 不如. The literal meaning of the sentence is that my Chinese is not as fluent as their English. The foreign people who learn Chinese language in China should learn more examples to reinforce the understanding of the word 不如.

The third word today is 由于. The word由于is used to refer the meaning of reason and it is often used in the former part in a sentence. For example, the sentence 由于我的汉语不如他们的英语流利,所以常常是他们说,我听 uses the word 由于at the beginning of the sentence. The literal meaning of the sentence is that since my Chinese is as fluent as their English, I often act as the listener in a conversation. The sentence expresses the meaning that the reason why I do not participate in their conversation is that my Chinese is not good enough.