subject: Mandarin Chinese Is Surprisingly Easy - Future Tense Verbs [print this page] Allow me to demonstrate how easy Mandarin Chinese is when it comes to expressing verbs in their future tense.
In fact in English it is also quite easy to express verbs in the future tense by simply putting the word "will" in front of the verb. For example :
I eat
I will eat
Chinese is exactly the same. All one needs to do is put the word "hui" in front of any verb and you have the future tense eg :
I eat
I "hui" eat
You can also put the word "yao" in front of the verb which literally means "want to" but can also be used to convey future tense. However, I tend to avoid this as sometimes it's hard to know whether someone "will" do something or "wants to" do something.
In order to keep things simple I have used the English words of course. I think it's easier this way instead of teaching you the words for "I" and "eat". It's not necessary to demonstrate the simple grammar Mandarin Chinese has. Now you may think this is nothing because English is just as easy when it comes to this tense. But when you compare Mandarin Chinese to French, this is a HUGE difference. French changes their verbs when expressing future tense. For example the same verb "to eat" which in French the infinitive is "manger"
Je mange (I eat)
Je mangerai (I will eat)
So although Chinese is just as easy as English when it comes to expressing future tense, one must not forget that many languages are very complex when it comes to expressing verbs in a future tense. I again use French to compare because I spent many years learning French at school only to be able to barely survive while on holiday in France once, whereas after 2 years of learning Mandarin Chinese as a hobby I was already having basic conversations with native speakers (much to my own surprise!)
Another nice and easy thing about Chinese is that it often allows the context of the conversation to determine the tense of verbs. For example if you are talking about tomorrow or next year or whatever, it isn't entirely necessary to ensure "hui" or "yao" is in front of every verb. This is because the listener already knows we are talking about the future and therefore it isn't necessary to ensure all the verbs are future tense. The same goes for past tense too. If you are talking about yesterday or last year the listener knows we are talking about the past so there's no need to ensure the verbs are all in the past tense.
I think this is incredibly logical and is just another thing I love about this simplistic language. I had no idea how complicated English was until I started learning Mandarin. As a result, I really feel sorry for Chinese people trying to learn our language. They must think our grammar is insanely complicated
There are so many more aspects of this language that are so easy. Don't let the hype fool you, as speaking goes, Mandarin Chinese is one of the easiest languages to learn (in my opinion of course). I have personally found it much easier than French.
