Basic Chinese Sentence Word Order (SVO)

Review on English sentences

To understand Chinese sentence structure, let us first review the typical English sentence word order:

Subject : who/what is doing the action (i.e. person)

Verb : what is the subject doing (i.e. to watch)

Object : who/what is the action being done to (i.e. TV)

Time + Place : Additional details about what is being conveyed.

Examples:

"She drinks tea at noon at home."

"The cat carries the bowl to the kitchen at 8 in the morning."

A significant difference between Chinese sentences and English sentences is where the additional information is placed. Time and place normally comes before the verbs. They can also be placed before the subject in the beginning of the sentence.

Chinese Sentence Structure

Chinese basic sentences are arranged in the following order:

Subject + Time + Place + Verb + Object

Note: Time and Place can also appear before the subject!

Let's review the English statements from above using the Chinese word order:

"She | at noon | at home | drinks | tea " 
-> 她中午在家喝茶。(tā zhōngwǔ zàijiā hē chá)

"the cat | at 8 in the morninig| to the kitchen | takes | the bowl." 
-> 猫早上八点在厨房拿碗。 (māo zǎoshàng bā diǎn zài chúfáng ná wǎn)

An overview to asking questions in Chinese

Review on English question structure

When asking questions in English, the question words are placed at the beginning of the sentence:

How did you know that?

Who was the culprit?

When are we going to the movies?

Where is my cell phone?

...

In Chinese, these questions words are:

Who: 谁

When: 什么时候

What time: 几点

Where: 哪里 / 哪儿

What: 什么

Chinese question word order

Unlike in English, where the question word is placed at the beginning of a sentence, Chinese is more like fill in a blank. We will continue with our example sentence: "She drinks tea at home at noon."

Again, using Chinese sentence structure it would read as: "She at noon at home drinks tea."

谁 (who):

She at noon at home drinks tea.
X at noon at home drinks tea.
WHO at noon at home drinks tea.
-> 谁中午喝茶在家? (Who is drinking tea at home at noon?)

什么时候 / 几点 (when / what time):

She at noon at home drinks tea.
She X at home drinks tea.
She WHEN/WHAT TIME at home drinks tea.
-> 她什么时候喝茶在家? (When is she drinking tea at home at noon?)
-> 她几点喝茶在家

(在)哪儿 / 哪里 (where):

She at noon at home drinks tea.
She at noon X drinks tea.
She at noon WHERE drinks tea.
-> 她中午在哪儿喝茶。 (Where is she drink tea at home at noon?)
-> 她中午在哪里喝茶。

什么 (what):

She at noon at home drinks tea.
She at noon at home drinks X.
She at noon at home drinks WHAT.
-> 她中午在家喝什么。(What is she drinking at home at noon?)