Basic Grammar: all 87 lessons free
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怎么样 — How Is It, How About It
怎么样 — 问评价，提建议
Put it after a noun to ask how something is. Put it after a plan to ask whether they are in. One word, both directions of an opinion.
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Memory hook
N + 怎么样？ · Suggestion，怎么样？
Six verdicts, asked for and given
Tap any line. First the question, then the answer it earned.
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How is it — and how about it问评价，也提建议
No pressure — just making it stick.
你妈妈最近身体____？
Nǐ māma zuìjìn shēntǐ ____?
How has your mother's health been lately?
我们晚饭以后去散步，____？
Wǒmen wǎnfàn yǐhòu qù sànbù, ____?
Let's take a walk after dinner — how about it?
Which reply fits?
Which reply turns the plan down?
Your turn — say it
明天天气怎么样？
How is the weather tomorrow?
——你觉得这部电影怎么样？——____。
— Nǐ juéde zhè bù diànyǐng zěnmeyàng? — ____.
— What did you think of the movie? — Meh, nothing special.
Your turn — say it
今天晚上吃火锅，怎么样？
Hotpot tonight — how about it?
Which reply fits?
This lesson's characters
The sky you keep asking about, the wooden model behind 样, and the 气 that rises through 天气.
sky; day
指a pointer
Take 大 — the person with arms spread as wide as they go — and draw one line above the head: the thing higher than the biggest person can reach. That is the sky. And because each sky lasts from sunrise to sunrise, 天 also counts days: 今天 this sky, 明天 the bright sky coming, 星期天 the star-period's sky off work. 明天天气怎么样 asks about tomorrow's sky twice in a row.
appearance; kind; manner
形meaning + sound
Wood carries the meaning, 羊 the sound. 样 came to mean the wooden model — the master pattern a carpenter copied — and from the pattern grew 'appearance, kind, way'. So 怎么样 asks, quite literally, what shape did it turn out?
air; breath
象drawn from life
Three wavy strokes of rising vapour — mist coming off a field, steam off a pot. 天气 is literally 'sky breath', which is a fair description of weather, and 生气, 'to grow breath', is what anger feels like. One small drawing, still doing all this work.
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
- Rate your day out loud, noun by noun: 今天的咖啡怎么样？今天的天气怎么样？ Verdicts only — 很好喝, 还可以, 不怎么样.
- Make one real plan this week with nothing but suggestion + 怎么样. If the answer is 好呀, the grammar worked.
- Someone tells you news — answer 现在怎么样了？ and mean it.