Basic Sentences: Sentences describing properties in Mandarin Chinese
From UniLang Wiki
We will now take a look at a sentence describing a property, equivalent to english sentences such as "the university is old". In this case the chinese use no verb for "to be", but instead they use their word for "very", where this word has a very weak meaning. Furthermore, we must also remember that the chinese do not use articles such as "the" and "a":
- 大学很旧 (dàxué hěn jiù) - Literal: university [very] old - The university is old
There is another way of forming this sentence. We can use the verb "to be" in combination with the determiner particle (DP):
- 大学是旧的 (dàxué shì jiù de) - Literal: university is old [DP] - The university is old
This way of expressing a property is usually used when you want to emphasize something, it is pretty much always used with colors.
Negation
Negation is usually made with the word 不 (bù), this always applies to this type of sentence, in which case 很 (hěn) is not not needed anymore:
- 大学不旧 (dàxué bú jiù) - Literal: university not old - The university is not old
And another way of expressing this using the verb "to be":
- 大学不是旧的 (dàxué bú shì jiù de) - Literal: university not is old [DP] - The university is not old
