Let's have a look at this sentence, supplied by a student: 小孩子们对天文都很有兴趣。 1. Could we have written 小孩子 instead of 小孩子们 ? 2. If both are possible, which difference does it make? Here are the answers. 1. Yes, we could have written 小孩子 instead of 小孩子们. 2. Basically, the meaning is the same. If you enjoy semantics, you could say that 小孩子... 都 is closer to "every child", while 小孩子们 ... 都 is closer to "all the children".

Recently, I gave you some pointers about the plural 们 in Chinese. (Browse the Community thread to find the related posts.) A student found an example which he couldn't explain: 小孩子们对天文都很有兴趣。 [Little] children are interested in astronomy. Before we go any further, I'd like you to think about these questions: 1. Could we have written 小孩子 instead of 小孩子们 ? 2. If both are possible, which difference does it make?

Here is the last episode of our series about the plural 们 in Chinese. If you haven't read the previous posts, just browse the thread. Last time we finished on a question: how can we express that we wish to invite Mr. Li and his family (his wife and children) to come over for dinner? Most of you answered correctly: (correct) 我们请李先生和他的家人来吃饭吧！ It may seem obvious to some of you, but certain languages use a plural with proper nouns when they refer to a group. (Think of 'The Simpsons' to refer to the family Simpson.) In Chinese, we don't use the plural 们 with proper nouns. There is an exception, though: when a proper noun is used figuratively to denote 'the people having such quality'. For example, 葛朗台们 (gělǎngtái men) is a literary way to refer to very stingy (吝啬) people. It is a reference to one of the main characters of a French novel by Honoré de Balzac -- Eugénie Grandet. In the novel, the father of Ms. Grandet hates spending money, even though he's extremely rich. He rarely heats the home, even in winter, just to avoid 'wasting' logs of wood. If you read about 葛朗台们 in an article, you can infer the author despises people like this. Normally, this use of 们 is derogatory, which means negative. However, it is sometimes used in a positive way, such as 雷锋们: 'the ones like Lei Feng'. Lei Feng was a soldier renowned for his bravery and dedication to a greater cause. He's still admired today. Whether a positive use of 们 is grammatically correct is still debated among experts. Just be aware that it exists. This concludes our series about the plural 们. Let me know in the comments if you enjoyed it, and if you learnt something new. Also, I'd be curious to know if your native language also uses proper nouns from literature or history to describe people with a typical attribute. That's part of what makes languages so interesting!

It seems that many among you figured out the right answer to the previous post. Yes, it was : (correct) 奶奶的猫都很可爱. But do you know why? Another specific rule to remember when dealing with the plural 们 is this: don't use 们 to indicate the plural of non human nouns, such as animals, plants, objects, companies, countries... In Chinese, you'll never hear plurals such as 'the United States', 'the Netherlands', 'the United Nations'... Easy, right? In some articles, you might read sentences such as: 花儿们在微笑 (the flowers are smiling). This is a poetic turn of phrase, as if flowers were human, as if they were smiling... Our next quizz is trickier. Imagine you have a friend named Li. You want to invite him and his family (his wife and children) for dinner. In English, you may say something like: "Let's invite the Lis". (If you're an English speaker, please tell in the comments if that's something you'd actually say.) Now, how would you express that in Chinese?

Last time, we started discussing the topic of 们 to express the plural in Chinese. Did you get the correct answer to the quizz? (correct) 我和我的两个朋友去中国旅游. The basic rule to remember is that, in Chinese, nouns do not change depending on singular or plural. A more specific rule to keep in mind is: whenever the noun is quantified (e.g. by a number, such as 两个 in the quizz sentence), we never add 们 to the noun. The quantifier needn't be a number, though: 花园里有很多花！(很多 quantifies the noun 花). 篮子里还有一些苹果. (一些 quantifies the noun 苹果). Now, let's turn to another example.

After your first few introductory lessons of Chinese, you've probably learned how to form the plural of personal pronouns: 我 (I, me) gives rise to 我们 (we, us) ; 你 (you, singular) leads to 你们 (you, plural) ; 他 (he, him) can be extended to 他们 (they, them). The same pattern applies, of course, to 她, 她们 and 它, 它们. This character 们, as you may have been told, denotes the plural. That's true, but there are several caveats with this 'plural' form! Let's start with the following example.

不和没（Part 2） Last time we talked about general rules , this time let`s talk about some special cases . "不" is always used with verbs such as "是, 像, 在". 例如： 我不是医生。 I am not a doctor. 他不像他的爸爸。 He doesn't look like his father. 我不在学校。 I am not at school. You cannot use 没 with those verbs. 没 is used to negate 有 in the present tense. 例如： 我没有时间。 I don't have time (now). 他没有零钱。 He doesn't have change (now). You cannot use 不 with 有.