Expressing "mistakenly think that" with "yiwei"
We often have mistaken beliefs about various topics. With this article, we learn how to express them in Chinese!
Structure
In English, the verb "to think" can imply that the belief is incorrect, e.g. in "I thought it was legal here." Chinese has a specific verb for this kind of mistaken belief: 以为 (yǐwéi). Literally these two characters mean "take to be", i.e. someone takes one thing to be something else.
Subject + 以为 + Phrase
The phrase will be a whole new statement that is actually incorrect.
Examples
- 我 以为你俩分手了。I thought you two broke up.
- 我 以为 她的 行李 没有 那么 重。I thought her luggage wouldn't be that heavy.
- 我们 还以为你 是 商店的老板 . We thought you were the shop-keeper.
See also
Sources and further reading
Books
- Short-term Spoken Chinese: Elementary (汉语口语速成基础篇) (pp. 106) →buy
- Contemporary Chinese 4 (当代中文4) (pp. 31) →buy
