Expressing "mistakenly think that" with "yiwei"

Revision as of 06:07, 13 June 2012 by 61.170.233.22 (talk)
Chinese-grammar-wiki-wei.jpg

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

  • 以为 美洲 是 印度。真 笨!
  • 以为 那 瓶 啤酒 没有 那么 重。
  • 经理 每 天 骂 这个 骂 那个,他 以为 他 是 老板 呢?

See also


Sources and further reading

Books