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是…的 (shì…de) is a very common and important structure in Mandarin Chinese grammar. It's essential for any student of Chinese to learn and be familiar with, and comes up constantly in written and spoken Chinese. There are two key things to note about the 是…的 construction: It's used to emphasize a detail in a sentence.
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- Yàoshi…Jiù
May 31, 2023 · In our Chinese Made Simple Level 1 Course, we recently introduced the 是…的 (shì…de) sentence structure, which is used to add emphasis. In this article, we’ll take an even closer look at this construction and provide some useful examples to help you incorporate it into your daily Chinese speech.
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- Forming A 是 … 的 Sentence
- Emphasising Different Parts of The Sentence
- What You Can Emphasise with 是 … 的
- Forming Questions with 是 … 的
- The Negative Form of 是 … 的
- 是 … 的 Implies Completion
- Moving 的
- Omitting 是
- Not Everything with 是 and 的 Is A 是…的 Construction!
- Summary
是 is placed right before the piece of information you want to draw attention to, and 的 comes at the end of the sentence. Whatever comes immediately after 是 is emphasised. This is equivalent to saying “It was … that …” in English (although English often just uses tone of voice to emphasise). Examples: 她是昨天去的。Tā shì zuótiān qù de.It was yesterdaythat...
是 can be placed at any one of three points in a sentence to draw attention to what comes after it. In the following sentence, for example, 我上个星期五跟我女朋友在饭馆吃饭。Wǒ shàng gè xīngqíwǔ gēn wǒ nǚ péngyǒu zài fànguǎn chīfàn.Last Friday I ate dinner with my girlfriend in a restaurant. Time, manner or place could be picked out with 是 … 的. 我是上个星期五跟我女朋友在饭馆吃饭的。Wǒ...
Broadly speaking, the 是 … 的 construction emphasises time, manner or place. This covers a lot of uses though. Here are some examples: 我今天是开车上班的。Wǒ jīntiān shì kāichē shàngbān de.Today I came to work by car. 我是用法文写这封信的。Wǒ shì yòng fǎwén xiě zhè fēng xìn de.I wrote this letter in French. 他是在网上发现这个信息的。Tā shì zài wǎngshàng fāxiàn zhège xìnxī de.He found...
You can also form questions with the 是 … 的 construction. This is done in the usual ways to form questions: 1. With 吗 2. With a question word 3. With verb / negative inversion Examples: 你那天是去伦敦的吗？Nǐ nèitiān shì qù lúndūn de ma?Did you go to Londonthat day?* * 他是给谁打电话的？Tā shì gěi shéi dǎ diànhuà de?Whowas it that he phoned? 我是不是五月出生的？Wǒ shì bù shì wǔ...
是 … 的 is negated as you would expect, with 不. This is used to draw attention to the fact that something is _not _the case. Examples: 我们不是在巴黎认识的。Wǒmen búshì zài bālí rènshi de.It wasn’t in Paristhat we met. 我的钱包不是被他偷走的。Wǒ de qiánbāo búshì bèi tā tōu zǒu de.My wallet wasn’t stolen by him.
Because 是 … 的 emphasises the details around an action, there is an implication that the action has been completed (so that we can know the details). However, this is just an implication, and not the main function of this construction. 是 … 的 is used to draw attention to extra details of an action, not to indicate its completion. 了 should be used to ...
Normally, 的 is placed at the end of the sentence in a 是 … 的 construction, and this is fine most of the time. However, it can also be placed before the object. The only time this is necessaryis when the 是 … 的 construction would result in a sentence with another meaning to the one intended. For example: 我是在网上卖衣服的。Wǒ shì zài wǎngshàng mài yīfu de.I se...
One final thing to note is that sometimes 是 can actually be omitted and the structure is still valid. This can’t happen all the time, though. If the subject is a demonstrative pronoun (这 or 那), you have to include 是. If the sentence is negative, you also need 是 (it would sound pretty strange without it). Otherwise, 是 can generally be omitted and th...
Remember that just because a sentence uses 是 and 的 doesn’t mean it’s emphasizing something. Far from it, in fact. 是 and 的 are a very common way to attach attributes to things. For example: 这辆车是红色的。Zhè liàng chē shì hóngsè de.This car is red. The sentence above is not ‘a 是 … 的 construction’ as described in this article. It’s just a bog-standard desc...
是 is placed before the part of the sentence you want to emphasise.的 is nearly always placed at the end of the sentence. Sometimes it appears before the object.All the usual question formations can be applied to 是 … 的 sentences.是 … 的 is negated with 不.Dec 23, 2020 · We use “是…的” (shì…de) whenever we talk about things and events that have already happened and want to emphasize time, place, method, person or purpose. But note that we only use it when this event has already happened or been completed in the past.
Both the 是…的 (shì…de) construction and 了 (le) can both be used to talk about past events in Mandarin Chinese grammar. Here's how to use the two constructions correctly, as they are different.
是…的 (shì…de) The structure “是……的” is used to emphasize that a past event occurred at a certain time or place and etc. Note that in this structure, “是” is often left out of it and nothing else changes. A: 你 什么时候起床？. (Nǐ shì shénme shíhòu qǐchuáng de?)
