{"id":183335,"date":"2015-04-01T14:34:21","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T18:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/learn\/chinese-ba-sentences\/"},"modified":"2024-10-31T19:51:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T23:51:03","slug":"chinese-ba-sentences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/chinese\/chinese-ba-sentences\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Use Ba in Chinese Correctly: All Usages + Practice Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once you start pushing toward intermediate Chinese, you’ll discover that there’s more beyond Chinese SVO statements<\/a>. The one construction you’ll probably hear the most is the Chinese ba <\/em>(\u628a) sentence.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this post, I’ll walk you through what you need to know about how to use ba<\/em> in Chinese.<\/p>\n

[fluentu-toc]<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How to Use “Ba” in Chinese<\/h2>\n

In Chinese grammar<\/a>, \u628a (b\u01ce)<\/em> is used when you want your sentence to focus on the result or effect of an action. <\/strong>It has no equivalent in English grammar and completely changes the order of the sentence.<\/p>\n

\u628a sentences are often used in situations where you could say, \u201cThe subject took the object and did something to it.\u201d When you use \u628a, you have to remember to put your object before<\/em> the verb.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Take this sentence for example:<\/p>\n

\u5979\u628a<\/strong>\u997a\u5b50\u5403\u6389\u4e86\u3002
\n(t\u0101 b\u01ce<\/strong> ji\u01ceo zi ch\u012b di\u00e0o le.)
\n<\/em>She ate up the dumplings.<\/p>\n

This follows the basic order of a \u628a sentence:<\/p>\n

Subject<\/strong> (\u5979) + \u628a<\/strong> + Object<\/strong> (\u997a\u5b50) + Verb<\/strong> (\u5403\u6389\u4e86)<\/p>\n

There are a lot of sentences in Chinese that sound more natural if you use \u628a, but you can usually get by without it. That said, Chinese has at least one common verb where you just can\u2019t use normal English word order: \u653e<\/strong>\u00a0(f\u00e0ng)<\/em> meaning “put.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example:<\/p>\n

\u6211\u628a<\/strong>\u4e66\u653e<\/strong>\u5728\u684c\u5b50\u4e0a\u3002
\n(w\u01d2 b\u01ce<\/strong> sh\u016b f\u00e0ng<\/strong> z\u00e0i zhu\u014d zi sh\u00e0ng.)
\n<\/em>I put the book on the table.<\/p>\n

Use \u628a\u00a0<\/em>to Emphasize What Happened to an Object<\/h2>\n

Unlike SVO statements which answer “What did the subject do?”, \u628a sentences answer the following questions:<\/p>\n