Basic Grammar: all 87 lessons free
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有 — There Is a Coffee on the Table
有 — 桌子上有一杯咖啡
You know 有 as 'to have'. Its second job: place + 有 + thing means there is, there are — and the place never takes 在.
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Memory hook
Place + 有 + thing · Place + 没有 + thing
Places first, things after
Tap any line. Every sentence opens with a place — and no 在 anywhere in sight.
Tap any line to hear it
Memory hook
他的小猫在桌子下面 · 桌子下面有一只小猫
有, 没有, or 在?「有」「没有」还是「在」？
No pressure — just making it stick.
____有一杯咖啡。
____ yǒu yì bēi kāfēi.
There is a cup of coffee on the table.
门外面没有____。
Mén wàimiàn méiyǒu ____.
There is no cat outside the door.
桌子下面____一只小猫。
Zhuōzi xiàmiàn ____ yì zhī xiǎo māo.
There is a kitten under the table.
What does the speaker want to know?
Your turn — say it
我家附近有很多好吃的餐厅。
There are lots of good restaurants near my home.
他的小猫____桌子下面。
Tā de xiǎo māo ____ zhuōzi xiàmiàn.
His kitten is under the table.
Someone shouts this through the door. What should you do?
Your turn — say it
你家附近有什么？
What is there near your home?
This lesson's characters
The verb of existing, the door the cat is behind, and the paper worth asking about.
there is; to have
会two ideas joined
A hand holding meat. The two strokes on top are a right hand, and the 月 below is not the moon but a piece of meat — the same 月 that shows up in body-part characters. To hold meat in your hand was to truly have something; and from owning, the word drifted to existing. What a table 有s is simply what is there on it.
door
象drawn from life
The traditional form 門 is two swinging door-leaves drawn in their frame — a saloon door, three thousand years early. Simplification kept the frame and one hinge-stroke. It marks both sides of this lesson's boundary: 门上 is where the note gets stuck, 门外面 is where the cat is not. Anything with 口 inside the doorframe is 问 — a mouth at the door, asking.
paper
形meaning + sound
Paper wears a silk radical because before paper, China wrote on silk — and the earliest paper was beaten out of silk scraps and plant fibre floating in water. When the sheet was invented it kept the fabric's family name; 氏 on the right just lends the sound. Two thousand years later you inherit the character exactly where it matters most: 厕所里有纸吗？
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
- Look up and report the room like her drill: 桌子上有…… 房间里有…… Whatever you cannot find, say with 没有 — and drop the number.
- The place opens the sentence bare. The day you stop reaching for 在 before it, this lesson is done.
- 在 locates something you know; 有 introduces something new. His kitten 在; a kitten 有.