Learning Mandarin - Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs

In Mandarin, the word for word is 词 (Cí). It’s pronounced somewhat like “tser”. An example of its use is in the word 词典  (Cídiǎn) which is the word for a dictionary.

Individual characters are called 字  (Zì) but that can also be used for a word. Mandarin characters would be 汉字  (Hànzì) where **汉  (**Hàn) represents the Han people ie: most of the Chinese.

Most of the parts of English speech have fairly direct equivalents. A Noun is called 名词  (Míngcí) which pretty much means “name word”.

A verb is called 动词  (Dòngcí) which is close to meaning a “move word” or perhaps a “movement word”.

An adjective is called 形容词  (Xíngróngcí) which is a little more complex but basically a “describe word”. 形 on its own is a shape.

An adverb is called 副词  (Fùcí) which is close to a “assistant word”, a “secondary word”, or an “auxiliary word”. 副 on its own is means secondary, auxiliary, deputy, assistant, etc.

2018-12-14