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.
在 — One Word, Three Jobs
在（一）— 一个字，三份工作
我在家 I'm at home. 我在家看电视 I watch TV at home. 我在看电视 I'm watching TV. The place always beats the verb to the door.
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Memory hook
在 + 地点 · 在 + 地点 + 动词 · 在 + 动词（呢）
The sentence grows, the order holds
Tap the lines in pairs — first just being somewhere, then doing something there. The place slides in before the verb every time.
Tap any line to hear it
Three jobs of 在「在」的三份工作
No pressure — just making it stick.
我____喝咖啡。
Wǒ ____ hē kāfēi.
I drink coffee at the coffee shop.
我明天____在家。
Wǒ míngtiān ____ zài jiā.
I won't be at home tomorrow.
我们昨天____在家看电影。
Wǒmen zuótiān ____ zài jiā kàn diànyǐng.
We didn't watch a movie at home yesterday.
我现在____工作。
Wǒ xiànzài ____ gōngzuò.
I'm not working right now.
Which reply answers the question?
Which reply answers the question?
Your turn — say it
我在咖啡店喝咖啡。
I'm drinking coffee at the coffee shop.
Your turn — say it
你在忙吗？
Are you busy right now?
This lesson's characters
Where being comes from, the heart that goes missing, and the shop it goes missing in.
to be at; at
形meaning + sound
The left side began as 才 — a sprout just pushing through the ground, and close enough in sound — with 土, the earth, added to anchor the meaning: to exist somewhere is to be planted somewhere. Which is exactly how its grammar behaves. 在 fixes you to a spot first, and only then is the rest of the sentence allowed to happen.
busy
形meaning + sound
忄 is the heart radical squeezed against the wall, and 亡 lends the sound — but 亡 means lost, perished, fled. Put them together and the character diagnoses itself: busy is when your heart has gone missing. Chinese teachers never let this one go, and they are right not to. 你在忙吗？ asks, quite literally, whether your heart is still on the premises.
shop
形meaning + sound
广 is a building seen from the side — a roof and a single wall, the market lean-to — and 占 underneath lends the sound. A 店 is any shop; Chinese just parks what it sells in front: 咖啡店, 饭店, 书店. Learn one character, read a whole street.
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
- 我在家。 Three characters, a complete sentence. Say where you are every time you sit down somewhere new today.
- Place before verb, always: 在家看电视, never 看电视在家. When the English order sneaks out of your mouth, flip it and say it again.
- Next time someone messages 在吗？, answer 在！ — then brace yourself for the favour.