Chinese grammar basics: the 8 rules that matter most

Chinese grammar is famous for what it does not have: no verb endings, no plural, no gender, no articles. What it has instead is a fixed word order, measure words, particles and tones. These eight rules — checked against Britannica and Wiktionary — cover what beginners need first. Not sure of your level? Take the free Chinese level test.

Updated November 7, 2026 · 4 min read

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1. Words never change their form

A Chinese word is invariable: it has no inflection and no marker of its part of speech. Person and number are expressed by the pronoun, not by the verb (Britannica): 我吃 (wǒ chī, I eat), 他吃 (tā chī, he eats), 我们吃 (wǒmen chī, we eat) — 吃 never changes. There is nothing to conjugate.

2. Word order is fixed: subject, verb, object

Because words do not change, order carries the meaning. The general order is subject–verb–object, with the modifier before what it modifies (Britannica): 我爱你 (wǒ ài nǐ, I love you) is not 你爱我 (you love me), and 中国人 (Zhōngguó rén, “China person”) is a Chinese person.

3. No articles, no plural — use measure words

Chinese has no word for “the”, although “one” and “this/that” are sometimes used like articles. Nouns are collective: to count them you need a classifier, or measure word (Britannica). 个 (gè) is the very common general classifier (Wiktionary); 本 (běn) is the one for books — 一本书 (yì běn shū, a book) (Wiktionary). Learn each noun with its measure word.

4. Adjectives work like verbs

In Chinese, adjectives act as a kind of verb and are not inflected for comparison (Britannica). So you do not need a word for “is”: 他很高兴 (tā hěn gāoxìng) — “he (is) very pleased”, with 很 meaning “very” (Wiktionary).

5. Yes/no questions: add 吗

Final particles give a sentence the meaning of a question, a command, surprise or a new situation (Britannica). The yes/no question particle is 吗 (ma) at the end of a statement: 你喜欢 (you like it) → 你喜欢吗？ (nǐ xǐhuān ma? — do you like it?) (Wiktionary). The word order does not change.

6. Verbs can line up

Verbs can follow each other in a fixed order to build one meaning: Britannica’s example is “take” and “come” placed together to mean “bring” (Britannica) — 拿来 (ná lái). Learn such pairs as single words.

7. Time comes from words and particles, not tenses

Since verbs never change, Chinese shows time with time words and aspect particles. The best known is 了 (le), a perfective aspect particle; at the end of a sentence it can also mark a change of state: 他是大学生了 — “he is a college student now” (Wiktionary). The full picture is in Chinese tenses: time and aspect.

8. Tones are part of every word

Modern Standard Chinese uses four tones to tell apart syllables that otherwise sound the same — Cantonese uses at least six (Britannica). mā (妈, mother) and mǎ (马, horse) are different words. Learn every word with its tone mark in pinyin, and say it aloud.

The eight rules at a glance

Keep learning

• Chinese tenses: time and aspect — 了, 过, 在 and 着
• A short history of Chinese · Where is Chinese spoken?
• Free Chinese level test · Learn Chinese with 16Word
• Level tests in 36 languages · All guides · Plans