Chinese Articles

If you're trying to learn Chinese Articles you will find that there is no articles used in Chinese. The definite and indefinite articles don't exist in the way we know it in English. But you should still look at the examples below, because they show how Chinese deals with the absences of articles. Also don't forget to check the rest of our other lessons listed on Learn Chinese. Enjoy the rest of the lesson!

Chinese Articles

In English articles are words that combine with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Generally articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun. Examples are "the, a, and an". However that doesn't exist in Chinese.

Chinese articles are words that combine with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Generally articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun. Examples are "the, a, and an".

There are no real articles in Chinese, there is 这 zhè, but that actually means this. As in 这本书zhè běn shū meaning this book. 本 běn is the measureword of 书 shū book. In English you cannot say: sugar, you have to say a lump of sugar, lump being the measure word, also a grain of salt, grain being the measure word. But there are only a few nouns in the English language which need such a quantity word. In Chinese each noun needs a measure word. Using the right measure word shows that you master the Chinese language, since finding the right measure word is quite some task. Chinese them selfs don’t alwaus know the right measure word and they use the general quantity word 个 gè. The indefinite article can be translated as一些yī xiē but means some, some number of. Here are some examples:

As you can see from the example above, the structure of no articles in Chinese takes a logical pattern.

List of Vocabulary in Chinese

Below is a list of vocabulary which should help you with your knowledge of Chinese. Try to practice but also memorizing this table will help you add very useful and important words to your Chinese vocabulary.

Definite and Indefinite Articles are not used in Chinese, but you still need to know how to create sentences without them. Once you're done with this lesson, you might want to check the rest of our Chinese lessons here: Learn Chinese. Don't forget to bookmark this page.