Basic Grammar: all 87 lessons free
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从 — From: Where It Starts, Where It Ends
介词「从」— 从明天开始、从北京到上海、从九点睡到十点
从明天开始减肥, 从北京到上海坐高铁要五个小时, 他从晚上十点睡到早上十点: 从 marks the starting point of time, distance or a sequence — and 到 marks the end.
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Memory hook
从 + start (+ V) · 从 A 到 B · 从 A V 到 B
Start here, end there
The deck's three shapes. Hear 从 open every line — and 到 close the ones that have an end.
Tap any line to hear it
From here to there从这儿到那儿
No pressure — just making it stick.
____明天开始减肥！
____ Míngtiān kāishǐ jiǎnféi!
The diet starts tomorrow!
Five hours. Which reply?
From home to the office is close.
Tap the tiles in order — it checks itself when the sentence is complete. Tap a placed tile to take it back.
Your sentence
他从晚上十点睡____早上十点。
Tā cóng wǎnshàng shídiǎn shuì ____ Zǎoshàng shídiǎn.
He slept from ten at night till ten in the morning.
Your turn — say it
从下周一开始上班。
I start work next Monday.
我们明天早上六点从这里____。
Wǒmen míngtiān zǎoshàng liùdiǎn cóng zhèlǐ ____.
We set off from here at six tomorrow morning.
Fill in each stretch with the right piece.
Tap a word to fill the next gap; tap a filled sentence to clear it. Every word is used once.
Word bank
0/5From A to B, in pictures看图说从哪儿到哪儿
No pressure — just making it stick.
Four things from the deck's stretches. Match each picture, then build a 从……到…… sentence.
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
从北京到上海坐高铁要五个小时。
Beijing to Shanghai takes five hours by high-speed rail.
It's a ten-minute walk from my home to the metro.
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
从早上九点到晚上十点一直在工作。
Working non-stop from nine in the morning to ten at night.
This lesson's characters
从 itself, and the two characters of 开始 — the beginning it marks.
from; to follow
会two ideas joined
Two people 人人, one following the other — the oldest 从 is exactly that: to follow. What you follow, you come from: 从北京来, from Beijing; 从明天开始, from tomorrow. 从前, 'from before', is once upon a time. Two little figures, and the second one has been walking behind the first for three thousand years.
to open; to start
会two ideas joined
The traditional 開 has the gate 门 around it: two hands 廾 lifting the bar 一 off a door — to open. The simplified form kept just the hands and the bar. Open a door, open a shop (开门), open a meeting (开会), start a car (开车), and start anything: 开始. 从明天开始 — the bar comes off tomorrow.
to begin
形meaning + sound
A woman 女 with 台 for the sound: the old dictionaries explain it as 'the beginning of a woman' — a girl, a first — and from first came beginning. 开始 is to start, 从……开始 is starting from, and 一开始 is 'at first'. Every diet in Chinese begins with these two characters and 明天.
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
- Measure your day with the frame: 我从几点工作到几点，从几点睡到几点，从家走到地铁站要多久. Three stretches, and your whole routine is in Chinese.
- Make one resolution with 从……开始 — and, for once, say 从今天开始 instead of 明天.
- Read the deck's timetable aloud as sentences: 从北京到上海坐高铁要五个小时，坐飞机要两个小时. You have just described China's geography.