Basic Grammar: all 87 lessons free
No sign-up needed, but nothing is saved. Sign up free and your progress and mistake book are kept — carry on from any phone or computer.
This practice works best alongside a lesson: to really get this grammar, book one and your teacher explains it and practises it with you.
都 — Both and All, Before the Verb
都 — both 和 all，都在动词前面
都 gathers everyone before the verb — 我都喜欢, never 我喜欢都. One position, one English habit to unlearn.
Sign up free — just an email. Your wrong answers go into your mistake book, and you can carry on on another device.
Sign up / sign inCloned voice — synthesised in a real teacher's timbre, not a recording of her.
Memory hook
主语 + 都 + 谓语 — and the both-trap
Memory hook
都不 ≠ 不都 · and 都 marks what follows it
Her 都 sentences
Tap any line. In every single one, find 都 — it is always standing just before the verb or the adjective.
Tap any line to hear it
Where does 都 go?「都」放在哪儿？
No pressure — just making it stick.
我们____是中国人。
Wǒmen ____ shì Zhōngguó rén.
We are all Chinese.
——你喜欢茶还是咖啡？——我____。
—— Nǐ xǐhuan chá háishì kāfēi? —— Wǒ ____.
— Tea or coffee? — I like both.
泰国和美国我____想去。
Tàiguó hé Měiguó wǒ ____ xiǎng qù.
Thailand and America — I want to go to both.
What does she mean?
What is she stressing?
Your turn — say it
茶和咖啡我都喜欢。
Tea and coffee — I like both.
Your turn — say it
我们都想回家了。
We all want to go home now.
This lesson's characters
都 itself with its double life, the 和 that hands it pairs to gather, and the tea you refuse to choose against.
both, all
形meaning + sound
The 阝 on the right is 邑, a walled city squeezed thin, and that was this character's first job: read dū, it means a great city — 都市 a metropolis, 古都 an ancient capital, and 成都 Chéngdū, the city this course pours its tea in. The adverb dōu, both-and-all, is the same character working a second shift with a second reading. So one shape holds a capital and a crowd — which, if you think about a capital, is not such a stretch.
and, with
形meaning + sound
禾, a grain stalk, gives the sound; 口, a mouth, gives the meaning. The first sense was voices answering each other in tune — harmony. From singing together to being together is a short step, and that is how 和 came to mean 'and': things placed side by side, in tune. 和平 is peace — harmony at full size.
tea
会two ideas joined
Read the character top to bottom and a small scene assembles: grass above, a tree below, and a person standing in between. Chinese tea people never tire of pointing it out — 人在草木间, a person among the grasses and trees, which is where tea is picked and, they would add, where one ought to drink it. When 茶和咖啡我都喜欢 refuses to choose, this is the older contestant.
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
- Next time someone offers you a choice — tea or coffee, this one or that one — refuse to pick: 我都喜欢。
- 都 before the verb, always. If you catch yourself building 喜欢都, that is English wearing a Chinese costume.
- Say one true 都 sentence about you and a friend: 我们都⋯⋯