Articles - Chinese Grammar

Chinese grammar is interesting in that it does not have definite or indefinite articles, similar to English’s ‘the’, ‘a’, or ‘an’. This differentiates it from many Western languages and poses unique challenges for learners. However, it doesn’t mean that Chinese lacks any form of specificity or generalization. They use specific nouns, context or demonstratives to indicate specificity.

For example, to practice article usage, students are often given sentence completion exercises where they fill in phrases with correct quantifiers like “个” (gè), “这” (zhè), “那” (nà), instead of an article. Such exercises help in accurately denoting specifics or generalizations.

In some exercises, students might need to decide between using “这” (this) or “那” (that). Asking ‘这是你的书吗?’ means ‘Is this your book?’ whereas ‘那是你的书吗?’ means ‘Is that your book?’. Exercises also involve the inclusion of measure words, which play a massive role in Chinese grammar. For example, ‘一个人’ (yí gè rén) means ‘a person’.

Thus, instead of focusing on articles, exercises in Chinese grammar focus on contextual references, correct usage of demonstratives, and correct usage of measure words. Mastery of these ensures clarity and specificity in communication which is otherwise provided by articles in many languages.