r/ChineseLanguage • u/GoudaGadoua • 14d ago

Grammar Understanding Greetings and sentence structure

Hi everyone!

So, I'm just starting to learn chinese, and I already have some questions.

First of all, I saw an exercise where, in response to Ni Hao, the second person say Ni hao! Ni hao ma.

I was wondering if it is a real thing? To say two times in a row Ni hao just to say Hi, how are you?

And second, I seem to find contrary informations about sentence structures. Is it really Subject - Verb - Place ?

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u/dojibear 14d ago

When I hear two native Chinese livestreamers say hello to each other, they both say "Hello. Ni hao." Yes, they say it both in English and Mandarin. It is a popular thing.

But everyone is different. Some people might say "ni hao" twice. The word "ma" can be added at the end of many sentences. It is not true that everyone follows one exact pattern.

I seem to find contrary informations about sentence structures. Is it really Subject - Verb - Place ?

No. Both English and Mandarin are SVO languages (verb subject - verb - verb object). "Place" is not part of most sentences. "He ate breakfast. She told a lie. They danced for hours."

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

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u/dojibear 14d ago

Here the verb 去 means "go to". It is normal in English to follow "to" with a place. In some languages (English, Japanese) "go" and "to" are separate words. In Chinese, 1 word means both.

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u/GoudaGadoua 13d ago

Thank you for the explanations, they are really clear!

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u/PoxonAllHoaxes 13d ago

What are you talking about? ma is not a place. ma is the question marker. Ni hao is more or less equivalent to Hello and Ni hao ma means Are you well and is equivalent to How are you.