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 。(This is the natural, easy way to say it.)
  • 我 正 在 看 着 书 呢 。 (This seems a bit much, and isn't very natural.)

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

Sources and further reading

Books

Websites

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