Reduplication of verbs

Revision as of 06:59, 24 July 2013 by Simingjie (talk | contribs)


One of the fun things about Chinese is that you can repeat certain things to express "a little bit", similar to how in some Latin languages you can add a bit to the end of a word to make it "cute".

Structure

In Chinese, verbs can be reduplicated to indicate that they happen briefly or "a little bit".

Subject + Verb + Verb

Examples

  • 看看(You) Take a little look.
  • 试试I'll give it a little try.
  • 听听(You) Listen for a bit.

See also

Sources and further reading

Books