A long Chinese sentence is enough to put anyone off learning Mandarin.
Even if you are an intermediate-and-above learner, long sentences can be intimidating and confusing.
You find yourself struggling to:
Identify what references what.
Know what is the verb acting on directly.
Keep track of the structure of the sentence.
Remember the subject and who or what it's referring to.
That’s because Chinese is different to English and most other European languages.
It’s a topic-prominent language. So the “subject” is much less important, and often omitted altogether.
It’s a context-based language. So it’s assumed the reader knows certain details, like who is acting on what, without it being made explicit.
It’s an information focus at-the-end language. So you have to wade through the entire sentence or paragraph before you get the “what it’s really about” bit (unlike in English which tends to get to it sooner).
So sentences in Chinese can be much longer, more vague, and confusing for the language learner.
You might get to the end of the sentence, congratulating yourself on understanding all the constituent bits, but still have no idea what it’s about!
But there is hope…
When you get lost, you need signposts.
Signposting will help you keep track of any long sentence in Chinese.
Because no matter how long and confusing it is, it’s full of helpful signposts.
Use these four signposts to quickly decipher any long sentence in Chinese:
Topic: what the sentence is “about” (which is normally at the start)
Information focus: the “point” (which is normally at the end)
Punctuation: commas and full stops break it down into smaller manageable chunks
Conjunctions: give overall structure and an outline “direction”
Take this sentence as an example from last week’s newsletter:
身体不在状态的何杰,在他很少参加的半马比赛里,靠一个并非自己最佳表现的成绩拿到了冠军,与此同时,比赛的第二三四名外籍选手,不约而同的在比赛最后几百米体力分配出现了问题,让何杰实现了反超,而这三人在目睹了何杰夺冠之后,最终同时撞线。
That’s one long sentence!
Translated into English, it would be at least three.
But by using these four signposts you can easily break it down:
Ok, so it’s still challenging. But much easier!
Now you try…
Here’s one more long sentence from a recent newsletter:
从烟草到电力,从两桶油到三大通讯、从五大行到……如果实现阶层的跃升靠的不是付出的血汗,而是注定的血缘,那就不要怪越来越多的年轻人身着长衫、躺平摆烂了,与其挤得头破血流依然看不到改变的希望,又何不欣然躺平、接受自己碌碌无为的一生呢?
No need to panic any more!
Use these signposts:
Identify the topic
Find the information focus
Highlight the punctuation
Pick out the main conjunctions
I hope these tactics help improve your ability to get through confusing long sentences in Chinese.
And if you’re interested to learn more about the signposting approach, and how it can help you tackle long sentences in Chinese, consider joining our member-only live webinar tomorrow night:
Deep Dive: The Sentence Untangler
Date: Wednesday 24 April
Time: 7-8pm UK time (3pm EST, 12pm PST, 8pm)
Where: Zoom (link at the end of this email)
It’s a one-hour webinar going deep on how to tackle long sentences in Chinese.
We’ll share much more on how to use signposts, with lots of practical examples (including the test question above!), and you get the chance to join live, ask questions, and access the recording and the presentation afterwards.
We’ll even teach you how to write your very own long sentences in Chinese!
All you need to do is become a member of RealTime Mandarin+.
As a member you also get access to:
🤿 Deep Dives archive from last year (and three more this year)
🔈 Member podcast published every Saturday (with loads of extra resources and integrations)
👩🎓 Intermediate Newsfeed published every Sunday (a “real” Chinese article in a lesson format)
Now, here are the login details of the Deep Dive tomorrow, and more information on how it can help you👇.
Members of the RTM+ community can join the Deep Dive by signing up via this link.
If you’ve already registered you don’t need to do anything. You’ll get a Zoom link sent to your inbox tomorrow morning, and in a reminder sent just before the live session.
You don’t need to prepare anything, but if you want to bring “one you prepared earlier”, a long sentence you’d like us to workshop during the live session, then please do!
Lastly, here are some of the outcomes you’ll get from the Deep Dive:
Learn tactics:
Gain tools to decipher with confidence
Understand how to cut a sentence into its grammatical parts
Better understand context clues within sentences and paragraphs
Improve comprehension:
Insight in approaching long sentences
Better understanding of how to construct long sentences
Increase speed:
Being able to understand long sentences FASTER
When you sign up for the Deep Dive you can also submit questions for us to address in the live session.
Hopefully see some of you tomorrow!
Cheers,
Andrew
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