From big to small, background to foreground
Word order is one of the most basic and yet trickiest things to master in Chinese. Straightforward word order is simple enough, but there are lots of variations, and the rules that govern how words are ordered are often less than obvious and seldom explained in textbooks.
There is one principle that governs ordering of information in Chinese which is quite simple, though, and that is the principle of going from background information to foreground or focal information.
This principle can be applied on a grammatical level, but in this post, we're going to look at a few easy cases where one single rule allows you to remember how to handle a wide range of information relating to time, location and names.
The general rule is that Chinese puts the biggest (and thus relating to background information) first and the smallest (and often more focal information) later. Let's look at a few examples from each category:
Time
Time in Chinese is given with the largest unit first, usually years, then followed by month, day, hour, minute, second and so on. This is different from many other countries. In the United States, 9/8/2015 means September 8, 2015, for example. In Chinese this would be:
In Pinyin, this is written "èrlíngyiwunián jiuyuè bahào". If you want to add time, you do that just as you would in English, so nothing strange there. Of course, if you want to write out hours, minutes and seconds, you need to use the appropriate Chinese words:
Remember, the rule is putting the biggest unit first.
Location
The same rule holds true for giving information about location, such as addresses or when including information about where a city is. Let's look at the second case first. In English, we would say:
In Chinese, it's the other way around and one would say:
The same is true for addresses. There are numerous ways of doing this in different languages, but this is the way you do it in Chinese. This is the address of the Beijing Culture and Language University: ?????????15?
Let's bread that down:
Names
Names of people in Chinese are also ordered in this way, with the largest unit (family name) placed before the smallest unit (personal name). I assume that most learners already know this, but taking such a wide diversity of areas and combining them into one single rule ought to make it easier to remember!
Grammar
I'm not going to go into details here, but grammar is an area where this applies in general (but not in all cases all the time). The topic-comment sentence can be viewed as a background-foreground ordering as well. You first provide information about what you're talking about (topic) and then add some new information to that (comment).
There is one principle that governs ordering of information in Chinese which is quite simple, though, and that is the principle of going from background information to foreground or focal information.
This principle can be applied on a grammatical level, but in this post, we're going to look at a few easy cases where one single rule allows you to remember how to handle a wide range of information relating to time, location and names.
The general rule is that Chinese puts the biggest (and thus relating to background information) first and the smallest (and often more focal information) later. Let's look at a few examples from each category:
Time
Time in Chinese is given with the largest unit first, usually years, then followed by month, day, hour, minute, second and so on. This is different from many other countries. In the United States, 9/8/2015 means September 8, 2015, for example. In Chinese this would be:
- 2015?9?8?
- 2015-09-08
In Pinyin, this is written "èrlíngyiwunián jiuyuè bahào". If you want to add time, you do that just as you would in English, so nothing strange there. Of course, if you want to write out hours, minutes and seconds, you need to use the appropriate Chinese words:
- 10?8?34?
- 10：08：34
Remember, the rule is putting the biggest unit first.
Location
The same rule holds true for giving information about location, such as addresses or when including information about where a city is. Let's look at the second case first. In English, we would say:
- He has moved to Melbourne, Australia (note that the largest unit, Australia, is placed last)
In Chinese, it's the other way around and one would say:
- ??????????
ta bandào àozhou de mòerben le
(Note that the largest unit comes first.)
The same is true for addresses. There are numerous ways of doing this in different languages, but this is the way you do it in Chinese. This is the address of the Beijing Culture and Language University: ?????????15?
Let's bread that down:
- City: ???
- District: ???
- Street: ??
- Number: 15?
Names
Names of people in Chinese are also ordered in this way, with the largest unit (family name) placed before the smallest unit (personal name). I assume that most learners already know this, but taking such a wide diversity of areas and combining them into one single rule ought to make it easier to remember!
Grammar
I'm not going to go into details here, but grammar is an area where this applies in general (but not in all cases all the time). The topic-comment sentence can be viewed as a background-foreground ordering as well. You first provide information about what you're talking about (topic) and then add some new information to that (comment).
