Aspect particle "zhe"

The particle 着 (zhe) is one way of indicating the continuous aspect in Mandarin Chinese (another common way is using the adverb 在 in front of verbs). You may have heard that the Chinese particle 着 added onto the end of verbs is similar to the use of -ing in English. This isn't particularly helpful, however, because the use of 着 in Chinese is not nearly so frequent, and is also largely idiomatic.

Basic Structure

Verb + 着

Examples

Some examples:

• 这 家 饭店 还 开 着 。
• 我们 站 着 说话 吧。
• 那 个 喝醉 的 人 不停 地 跳 着 舞。

着 for a continuous state

While it's true that the "full progressive pattern" can make use of 着, this is not a pattern you're going to want to use all the time. For example, if you want to say "I'm reading," you have these two choices:

我在看书。

我正在看着书呢。

The first one is fine, but the second one is definitely odd, and unnecessarily wordy. So there's no need to intentionally construct such long unwieldy structures. For this kind of usage (which corresponds pretty closely to the "-ing" in English which we mentioned before), you're better off avoiding 着.

There are, however, other uses of 着 which are needed. When you're talking about "states" which don't involve any continuous action, or actually doing anything, you're going to want to use 着 instead of 在. Some examples:

• 这 家 饭店 还 开 着 。
• 我们 站 着 说话 吧。
• 那 个 喝醉 的 人 不停 地 跳 着 舞。

着 for doing an action in a particular state

• 这 家 饭店 还 开 着 。
• 我们 站 着 说话 吧。
• 那 个 喝醉 的 人 不停 地 跳 着 舞。

着 used idiomatically

• 这 家 饭店 还 开 着 。
• 我们 站 着 说话 吧。
• 那 个 喝醉 的 人 不停 地 跳 着 舞。

See also

• Expressing actions in progress (full form)
• Expressing States in Place with "zhe"

Sources and further reading

Books

• A Practical Chinese Grammar For Foreigners (外国人实用汉语语法) (pp. 414 - 423) →buy
• Chinese: An Essential Grammar, Second Edition (pp. 89) →buy
• Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar (pp. 217 - 225) →buy

Websites

• About.com: Mandarin Chinese Aspect
• East Asia Student: Mandarin suffixes and prefixes