Basic Grammar: all 87 lessons free
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This practice works best alongside a lesson: to really get this grammar, book one and your teacher explains it and practises it with you.
给 — The Arrow That Points at a Person
给 — 指向人的介词
给我打电话 and 打电话给我 both work. 道歉给我 does not — the difference is whether anything actually arrives.
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Memory hook
给 + 人 + 动词 — the always-safe seat
Memory hook
When the landing matters, say 给 last
Arrows in both seats
Tap any line. Find 给, then check which seat it took — and notice that something travels in every sentence.
Tap any line to hear it
Aim the arrow把箭头对准
No pressure — just making it stick.
我____他打电话。
Wǒ ____ tā dǎ diànhuà.
I'm calling him.
他在忙，你下午____打电话吧。
Tā zài máng, nǐ xiàwǔ ____ dǎ diànhuà ba.
He's busy — call him this afternoon.
我借了一本书____他。
Wǒ jiè le yì běn shū ____ tā.
I lent a book to him.
What will he do later?
Why is 给 allowed after the verb here?
Your turn — say it
我给他打电话。
I call him.
Your turn — say it
打电话给我。
Call me.
This lesson's characters
The giver itself, and the two halves of the phone call it most often sends.
to give; to, for
形meaning + sound
纟 is the silk radical, 合 lends the sound — and the character's first job was keeping supply lines running: read jǐ, it still means to provide (供给). The everyday reading gěi is the same handing-over seen from up close: one pair of hands to another. Today it hands over more than silk — things, phone calls, and, as a preposition, whole actions aimed at a person.
electricity
象drawn from life
The old form 電 drew rain 雨 above a lightning bolt. Simplification kept just the bolt — the hook at the bottom is its tail. When electricity arrived it took the lightning character, and lightning now runs half your vocabulary: 电话 electric speech, 电脑 electric brain, 电影 electric shadows.
speech, words
会two ideas joined
讠 is the speech radical squeezed thin, and the right side reads today as 舌, a tongue sticking out of a mouth — historically it began as a worn-down sound part, but 'words are what the tongue does' is the way every classroom remembers it, and the tongue is really there on the page. 电话, the phone, is electric talk; 打电话 is to hit one into being, the same 打 that gets you a taxi in 打车.
Take these with you
Everything worth taking away. Tap any line to hear it.
Words 生词
Characters 汉字
Before you go课后回顾
- Tonight's homework is one phone call. Before you dial, say the arrow out loud: 我晚上给⋯⋯打电话。
- The flow test decides the seat: if something ends up in their hands — a call, a gift, a book — 给 may follow the verb. If nothing arrives, 给 leads.
- When it matters where the thing lands, put 给 last: 我借了一本书给他 leaves no doubt who has the book.