In Mandarin, you the time indicator will always be at the beginning of the sentence, before the verb.  

我今天去了购物。 Wo3jin1tian1qu4le0gou4wu4. This would be the correct way to write the sentence.

Also, the use of 了(le) in this sentence is to indicate the past tense/completion of the action.  This is not the only use of this character, but is one of the most common. 

My Chinese learning diary - day 2.

My goal is to write one thing in Chinese each day.

我 今天去 购物。
Wǒ jīntiān qù gòuwù。
Today I went shopping.


I think this sentence has errors, but I tried to write it myself and not use a translator. Please tell me if it is correct or not.
Tomorrow I will try to write some more sentences that say what I did.


Now I will review my lesson from yesterday.... I hope it is right!

我 要 每天 吃一个苹果。
wǒ yào měitiān chī yī gè pīng guǒ。
I want to eat one apple every day.

My Chinese learning diary - day 2.

My goal is to write one thing in Chinese each day.

我 去 今天 购物。 The best and most accetable way to write this in Chinese is 我今天去了购物. You could also say 我今天去购物了 or 今天我去了购物 or 今天我去购物了。 Chinese grammer in these sentences should go: Subject, time, verb, completion particle, auxillary/helping verb, noun or verb. Or, time word, subject, auxillary/helping verb, noun or verb, completion particle. (Subject and time can be reversed, but the most accetable way in Chinese is subject then time.
Wǒ qì jīntiān gòuwù。
Today I went shopping.


I think this sentence has errors, but I tried to write it myself and not use a translator. Please tell me if it is correct or not.
Tomorrow I will try to write some more sentences that say what I did.


Now I will review my lesson from yesterday.... I hope it is right!

我 要 每天 吃一个苹果。
wǒ yào měitiān chī yī gè pīnggǔo。
I want to eat one apple every day.

我今天去购物了。 “今天” adverbials of time must be used before a verb or adjective
“去购物” is serial verb construction，have some sequence of the actions。  “了”used after the verb, here means you have finished shopping。so ,should be 去购物了，not be 去了购物
and this sentence is okay to say :我今天购物去了。"去"here used as a directional complement （趋qū 向xiàng 补语）to qualify the verb 购物。

hope this  helps !

以上 華語母語人士 都說成 :
我今天去購物  /  今天我去購物

時間詞的位置並不影響語意

我每天要吃一顆蘋果 = 我要每天吃一顆蘋果

但是 錯誤的關鍵在於 了 的位置

非母語人士 都說成 :

我今天去了購物

就違反母語人士的慣用語法

正確的說法是 : 我今天去購物了

得將 了 置於句末

他例 :

我今天去練功夫了

我今天去參加考試了

又例 :

我今天去了學校

我今天上了教堂

我今天去了大賣場

了 置於 動詞 之後

語法書亦有敘述不完整之處