{"id":3234,"date":"2019-11-07T18:10:32","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T18:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-grammar\/chinese-grammar-connecting-nouns-with-quot-shi-quot\/"},"modified":"2019-11-07T18:10:32","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T18:10:32","slug":"chinese-grammar-connecting-nouns-with-quot-shi-quot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/th\/chinese-grammar-connecting-nouns-with-quot-shi-quot\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese grammar: Connecting nouns with "shi""},"content":{"rendered":"
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In Chinese grammar, the verb to be is not used in Chinese the same way as it is in English. In Chinese, \u662f is for co<\/em>nnecting nouns, and is generally not used with adjectives.<\/p>\n

Structure<\/strong>
The structure for co<\/em>nnecting nouns with \u662f is:
Noun 1+\u662f+Noun 2<\/p>\n

This is equivalent to "Noun 1 is Noun 2" in English.
Chinese does not co<\/em>njugate verbs. That is, the form of the verb is the same no matter who is doing it. In this case, it is always \u662f and never changes. As you can see, it’s easy to form simple sentences expressing to be in Chinese.<\/p>\n

Examples<\/strong>
Simple \u662f sentences<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Noun 1<\/th>\n\u662f<\/em><\/th>\nNoun 2<\/th>\n <\/th>\nTranslation<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
\u6211<\/td>\n\u662f<\/em><\/td>\n\u5b66\u751f<\/td>\n\u3002<\/td>\nI am a student.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u5979<\/td>\n\u662f<\/em><\/td>\n\u533b\u751f<\/td>\n\u3002<\/td>\nShe is a doctor.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u4ed6<\/td>\n\u662f<\/em><\/td>\n\u8001\u5e08<\/td>\n\u3002<\/td>\nHe is a teacher.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u8fd9<\/td>\n\u662f<\/em><\/td>\n\u4e66<\/td>\n\u3002<\/td>\nThis is a book.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u90a3<\/td>\n\u662f<\/em><\/td>\n\u676f\u5b50<\/td>\n\u3002<\/td>\nThat is a cup.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Be careful though. As you can see above, \u662f is o<\/em>nly used to l<\/em>ink two nouns. It cannot be used to l<\/em>ink a noun and an adjective. This is a very common mistake for people just beginning to learn Chinese. For that kind of sentence, you’ll want to use the l<\/em>inking word \u5f88.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n