2 · 40 words

Everyday adjectives

Clean and dirty, easy and hard, quiet and noisy, heavy and light.

A Chinese adjective works like a verb: 房间(fángjiān)很(hěn)干净(gānjìng), “the room is clean”, needs no word for “is”. Without 很(hěn) or another adverb, a bare adjective sounds like a comparison — 这个(zhège)贵(guì) means this one is the dearer one. Several words here are built from 有(yǒu) or 没(méi) and a noun, like 有意思(yǒuyìsi) and 没意思(méiyìsi).

The words

Adverb (1)

差不多(chàbuduō)almost; about the sameAdverb2

饭(fàn)差不多(chàbuduō)好(hǎo)了(le)。The food is almost ready.

This list belongs to The scaffolding — 21 lists and 842 words that can also be practised as a whole.

Practise this list

Multiple choice and gaps, drawn from exactly these 40 words. Whatever you get wrong comes back tomorrow.