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Chinese adjectives
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chinese adjectives (Simplified Chinese: 形容词; Traditional Chinese: 形容詞; pinyin: xíngróngcí) are somewhat different from those in English in that they can be used as verbs (for example 天黑了 tiān hēi le "The sky has become dark") and thus linguists sometimes prefer to use the terms static or stative verb to describe them. In most dictionaries 形容词 (often abbreviated 形) is used to identify this part of speech.
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When describing a noun with an adjective composed of multiple characters, 的 de is used between the adjective and noun (for example 高兴的孩子 gāo xìng de hái zi "happy child"). It is not used with single-character adjectives (新车 xīn chē "new car"). Some examples:
When describing a subject with most adjectives in Chinese the verb "to be" is not required - in fact its use is grammatically incorrect. These adjectives follow the simple pattern Noun + Adjective, with an extra word (such as 很 hěn "very", 好 hǎo "highly", 真 zhēn "really", 非常 fēi cháng "extraordinarily") inserted between the noun and adjective to specify the adjective's intensity. For example, the following express increasing intensities of the statement "she is beautiful":
她 很 漂 亮 。
She is very beautiful.她 好 漂 亮 。
She is highly beautiful.她 真 漂 亮 。
She is really beautiful.她 非 常 漂 亮 。
She is extraordinarily beautiful.
Another pattern exists which expresses an intensity stronger than any of the above: Noun + Adjective + 极了 jí le.
When this extra word is left out, the sentence becomes comparative, so that the sentence
does not mean “she is beautiful,” but instead means “she is more beautiful (than someone else).” To indicate the basic meaning of “she is beautiful,” the word 很 (hěn "very") may be used and it’s meaning as an intensifier becomes nullified.
Most adjectives fit the above pattern, but some do not. They are often things that describe mutually exclusive states of being, such as gender or color. These adjectives follow the pattern Noun + 是 shì + Adj + 的 de. For example: