> you should all speak Chinese now, whose words don't change forms at all
There are some inflectional elements in Chinese.
Speaking for Mandarin:
- Verbs may be inflected into one of three aspects, with the suffixes 着 (progressive), 了 (perfective), or 过 (experiential).
- Certain verbs may be inflected for possibility or impossibility, with the infix 得 (for possibility) or 不 (for impossibility). If the verb is not naturally part of the category that participates in this construction, the dummy particle 了 (which shares spelling, but not pronunciation, with the perfect suffix mentioned above) must be supplied, to convert it into that category.
- Nouns may be inflected for plurality with the suffix 们. As I understand it, this is only really appropriate where the noun refers to a collection of people (broadly defined), but any such noun may receive the suffix.
Yeah but doesn't the way you intone a word change the meaning entirely? With how heavy accents are the norm for English second speakers I would think this makes Chinese practically impossible to learn to pronounce. Also 90% of the world can read the latin alphabet already which is a good start when learning a new language. Years ago I made a small attempt to learn some Russian and Cyrillic was like smashing against a brick wall, I imagine it's 200x worse for Chinese since you have to learn 5000 new characters.
thaumasiotes|2 years ago
There are some inflectional elements in Chinese.
Speaking for Mandarin:
- Verbs may be inflected into one of three aspects, with the suffixes 着 (progressive), 了 (perfective), or 过 (experiential).
- Certain verbs may be inflected for possibility or impossibility, with the infix 得 (for possibility) or 不 (for impossibility). If the verb is not naturally part of the category that participates in this construction, the dummy particle 了 (which shares spelling, but not pronunciation, with the perfect suffix mentioned above) must be supplied, to convert it into that category.
- Nouns may be inflected for plurality with the suffix 们. As I understand it, this is only really appropriate where the noun refers to a collection of people (broadly defined), but any such noun may receive the suffix.
moffkalast|2 years ago