Blog

ATTRIBUTIVES are words or expressions used to qualify nouns. They can be used to either describe or delimit nuns. In Chinese language, nouns, nominal phrases, verbs, verbal phrases adjectives and adjectival phrases can be attributives, which usually precede the words they qualify. This contrasts with English where most attributives usually follow the nouns.

Patterns:

1. Nouns as attributives

北京的天气  Běijīng de tiānqì   the weather in Beijing

瓶子的盖子  píngzi de gàizi     the lid of the bottle

办公室的门  bàngōngshì de mén  the door of the office

• Nominal phrases as attributives

北京附近的天气  Běijīng fùjìn de tiānqì    the weather near Beijing

瓶子盖子的颜色  píngzi gàizi de yánsè     the color of the bottle lid

办公室左边的门  bàngōngshì zuǒbiān de mén  the door to the left of the office

• Verbs as attributives

游泳的孩子  yóuyǒng de háizi    the child who is swimming

吃饭的人   chīfàn de rén        the person who is eating

打篮球的帅哥  dǎ lánqiú de shuàigē   the handsome guy who is playing basketball

• Verbal phrases as attributives

在河里游泳的孩子 zài héli yóuyǒng de háizi  the kid who is swimming in the river

昨天在饭店吃饭的人  zuótiān zài fàndiàn chīfàn de rén   the person who had dinner at the restaurant

在操场上打篮球的帅哥  zài cāochǎng shàng dǎ lánqiú de shuàigē  the handsome guy who is playing basketball on the playground

• Adjectives as attributives

漂亮的风景  piāoliang de fēngjǐng    a beautiful scenery

特别的爱好  tèbié de àihào         a special hobby

奇怪的人  qíguài de rén            a weird person

• Adjectival phrase as attributive

又高又帅的男人  yòu gāo yòu shuài de nánrén    a tall and handsome man

聪明可爱的孩子  cōngmíng kěài de háizi         a clever and cute child

又好吃又便宜的零食  yòu hǎochī yòu piónyì de língshí   delicious and cheap snacks

Note：

1. In Chinese language, we use verbal phrases as attributives the most.
2. We can make attributives longer by extending the phrase before the central word. And attributives also follow the order of the basic sentence structure: subject + specific time + method + place + verb + complement + object.

For example:

我昨天在（公园旁边的）饭店吃了饭。Wǒ zuótiān zài （gōngyuán pángbiān de ）fàndiàn chī le fàn 。    

我昨天在（邮局附近的公园旁边的）饭店吃了饭。  wǒ zuótiān zài （yóujú fùjìn de gōngyuán pángbiān de ）fàndiàn chī le fàn 。

• In attributives, we don’t use the particle “了(le)” to indicate the past time.

• The method of translating an English sentence with attributives into a Chinese sentence is :

  Step one: find out the main English sentence structure

  Step two: find out the descriptive part and the central word (a noun, which in English normally can be connected to the attributive with connection words such as “which, that, who, why and etc.

  Step three: put all the descriptions before the central word, and add a 的(de) before the noun.

  Step four: you don’t need to translate the English connection words into Chinese.

Exercise:

Please translate the following sentences into Chinese.

1. The boy sitting behind my mother is my teacher’s son.

2. Last week I bought a painting of Picasso’s.

3. Travelling is a good way to practice your Chinese.

4. We had dinner at the restaurant to the left of the park.

5. I want to find someone suitable to finish this job.

6. I like the cellphone you bought on the internet.

Please download this content with the answer of exercise here.

Ten Most Important Sentence Structures for Learning Mandarin Chinese