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Hi there! Ready to learn some super useful action words in Mandarin Chinese? Let's dive in!
In Mandarin, verbs are the action stars of your sentences. We are starting with three very common actions: eating, drinking, and reading. These verbs stay the same no matter who is doing the action.
The verb for 'to eat' is 吃 (chī). When we say 'eat apples,' we say 吃苹果 (chī píngguǒ). Notice how the action verb comes right before the thing you are eating, just like in English!
Next is 'to drink', which is 喝 (hē). To say 'drink water', we say 喝水 (hē shuǐ). In Mandarin, we do not change the verb for 'he', 'she', or 'they'—it is always just 喝!
Finally, we have 'to read' or 'to look at', which is 看 (kàn). If you want to say 'read a book', you say 看书 (kàn shū). You can think of 看 as using your eyes to focus on something.
Translate the sentence 'My friend eats apples' into Mandarin Chinese step-by-step.
- Identify the subject: 'My friend'. In Mandarin, this is 我的朋友 (wǒ de péngyǒu).
- Identify the action verb: 'eats'. As we learned, the verb for 'to eat' is 吃 (chī).
- Identify the object: 'apples'. In Mandarin, 'apple' is 苹果 (píngguǒ).
- Assemble the sentence in Subject-Verb-Object order: 我的朋友 (My friend) + 吃 (eats) + 苹果 (apples).
- Put it all together: 我的朋友吃苹果 (wǒ de péngyǒu chī píngguǒ). The verb does not change form!
