help bg
Go Back

Is 中国 Still Noun in 很中国?

Foreigners may meet many problems when they learn to speak Chinese. In Chinese language, for example, the nouns are usually not allowed to be modified by 很. It is incorrect to say 很学生and 很馒头. As a matter of fact, it is the grammatical function of adjective that being modified by 很. However, in recent years, many phrases with the structure of 很+noun like 很贵族,很青春,很中国 and 很女人,causing confusion to the foreign Chinese language learners.

Some learners may thing the nouns in these structures have become the adjectives. But it is not proper to say that because the nouns can be used in these structures are very limited. For instance, we can say 很农民 but the words of the same type like 工人,教室 and 医生are not used in this pattern.

In the structure “很+noun”, the main point showed is not the things that the nouns indicate but the typical characteristics of the things under certain social and cultural backgrounds. For instance, foreign students who learn Chinese online free should know that 很贵族emphasizes the features of 贵族 and 很农民indicates the typical characteristics of 农民. However, this new meaning has not been fixed and can’t be collocated with other classifications of words.

Another mistake that the overseas students often make is to say 他很有经历, which is wrong. The main reason of causing this is the influence of their mother tongues and having no idea about the difference between 经历and经验. In the languages like English, Korean and Thai, 经验and 经历 are expressed with the same word. For example, both of them are described with experience. However, in Chinese, 经验 and 经历 belong to different words classifications.

Such phenomenon brings much difficulty to foreigners who come to learn Chinese language in China. 经验 is a noun while经历 can be used for verb and noun. Even as noun, they have different meanings, the former is use do say someone is good at something because of the long time engagement. We can say 有…的经历 whatever we experienced. Here are two example, 他的经验很丰富and我没有一个人旅游的经历.

Please use vertical scrolling on your mobile device.