Basic Grammar: all 87 lessons free
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真 — Really! The Word for Being Impressed
语气副词「真」— 真好啊！
真 + adjective + 啊: 今天天气真好啊！ 你的汉语真好！ The exclamation that makes compliments land — and the everyday 好 that does the same job.
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Memory hook
真 + 形容词 / 心理动词 (+ 啊)！
Being impressed, out loud
Every line is an exclamation. Listen for 真 before the adjective and the little 啊 that closes it.
Tap any line to hear it
React, don't report反应，不是汇报
No pressure — just making it stick.
今天天气____好啊！
Jīntiān tiānqì ____ Hǎo a!
What lovely weather today!
Someone praises your outfit. Which reply keeps the ball in the air?
I really want to buy a new phone!
Tap the tiles in order — it checks itself when the sentence is complete. Tap a placed tile to take it back.
Your sentence
这个菜____！
Zhè ge cài ____!
This dish is delicious!
Your turn — say it
你的汉语真好啊！
Your Chinese is really good!
我____想去中国啊！
Wǒ ____ Xiǎng qù Zhōngguó a!
I so want to go to China!
Finish each exclamation with the word that fits.
Tap a word to fill the next gap; tap a filled sentence to clear it. Every word is used once.
Word bank
0/5Things worth a 真值得一个「真」的东西
No pressure — just making it stick.
Four things people exclaim about. Match each picture to its word, then say 真……啊！ for it.
Tap a picture, then choose its word. Picked wrong? Tap that picture and choose again. Match all the cards to finish.
Your turn — say it
今天天气真好啊！
What lovely weather today!
Your outfit is gorgeous!
Tap the tiles in order — it checks itself when the sentence is complete. Tap a placed tile to take it back.
Your sentence
Your turn — say it
谢谢，你的汉语真好啊！
Thanks — your Chinese is really good!
This lesson's characters
真 itself, and two characters from the things it praises — the weather and beauty.
real, true; really
会two ideas joined
Old dictionaries saw a ladle 匕 over a cauldron 鼎 — a taoist adept transformed into an immortal, the 'true' self — but the honest reading is simpler: an eye 目 inside a frame, looking closely, and what you see when you look closely is real. From real came really: 真好, truly good. 真的吗？ — really? — is the question you ask when someone tells you good news.
to float; (漂亮) pretty
形meaning + sound
Water 氵 and 票 for the sound: to float, to drift on water — 漂 piāo. Read piào, it means bleached clean, and 漂亮, 'clean-bright', became the ordinary word for pretty. So 他真漂亮啊 calls someone bright as bleached linen. 票 on its own is the ticket in your pocket — 电影票, 车票.
to look at; (视频) video
形meaning + sound
示, to show, next to 见, to see: what is shown and looked at. 电视, the 'electric look', is television; 视频, the 'look-frequency', is the video on your phone. 你真喜欢看视频啊！ is the sentence of our decade — and 视 is the character doing the looking in it.
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
- Step outside tomorrow morning and say the weather sentence — 今天天气真好啊 or 今天天气真冷啊 — whichever is true. Reacting in Chinese is how it becomes yours.
- Pay one real compliment this week with 真, and when one comes back to you, throw it straight back: 谢谢，你的……真……！
- Keep the two families apart: 很 / 非常 / 太……了 measure, 真 / 好 react. A thermometer never gasps; 真 always does.