Learn how to use the verbs "to like" and "to love"
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| Hēi, dàjiā hǎo, wǒ jiào Mǎ Yànrú. Hi everybody! I’m YanruMa. |
| Welcome to ChineseClass101.com’s “Sān fēnzhōng Hànyǔ”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Chinese. |
| In the last lesson, we learned how to use the verb zuò, which means "to do" in Chinese. |
| In this lesson, we will learn how to use xǐhuān, a very romantic Chinese verb, which is also the third verb in our series dedicated to the most common Chinese verbs. |
| In this lesson we are going to see how to use it correctly. Let’s go! |
| Imagine you are in a restaurant with your fiancé and he or she asks you Nǐ xǐhuān Zhōngguó cài ma ? |
| This means "Do you like Chinese food?" |
| So supposing you like it (even if it is not so romantic!) You can say èn, wǒ xǐhuān which means “Yes, I like it.” |
| [slowly] Èn, wǒ xǐhuān. |
| So let’s break down this answer: |
| First we had- |
| èn, which is simply "Yes." |
| Then wǒ’ which is "I" in Chinese. After that we have xǐhuān, which means "like". |
| Note that in China we use the verb xǐhuān to express that we "just like" something or someone. If you want to show that you really like or you love something or someone, there is another word - ài. |
| But when it comes to the word ài, you should be careful. When you use this word to talk about something, it just means you like something really a lot. But when you want to use it to someone, be careful because this person must be your lover or a family member. And actually it’s not that common for people to say this word even to their families, as most Chinese people feel shy about discussing this kind of feeling. If they do love you, they might act that way rather than say it. So don’t use it with someone even if you really really like him or her, because you might be misunderstood to be trying to confess something and it may cause you trouble! |
| But if you are talking to the person you fell in love with, you can tell him or her Wǒ ài nǐ. which is the famous "I love you" in Chinese! Isn’t that romantic? |
| Now it’s time for Yanru’s Tips. |
| In Chinese, if you really want to insist on the fact that you love something but in an informal way, you can use the adverbs hěn or fēicháng which mean “very much”, to modify the word xǐhuān. You will certainly hear Wǒ hěn /fēicháng xǐhuān jiàqī! This means "I really like holidays!" It’s stronger than xǐhuān but weaker than ài. |
| In this lesson, we learned how to use the verbs xǐhuān and ài depending on the degree of your feeling! |
| Next time, we’ll learn another very useful and romantic verb, lái. Do you know what this Chinese verb means? I’ll be waiting with the answer in the next Sān fēnzhōng Hànyǔ. |
| Zài jiàn ! |
25 Comments
HideWhat Chinese food do you like the most?
你好 robert groulx,
谢谢 for posting and studying with us. If you have any questions, please let us know.😄
Kind regards,
雷文特 (Levente)
Team ChineseClass101.com
thank you for the lesson transcript
fvoritephrase is Nǐ xǐhuān Zhōngguó cài ma ?
robert
Hello Jason,
Thank you for your comment. We don't use 是 to answer all the yes-no questions, depending on the context, we normally simply repeat the verb used in the questions. In short, we can just say 喜欢 (xǐhuān), which means "yes (I like it)".
Let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hi. To give an affirmative response, Chen says 嗯，我喜欢。 - en, wǒ xǐhuān. Is it also possible to answer 是，我喜欢。- Shì, wǒ xǐhuān. ?
Many thanks
Hello Jacob Wright,
Thank you for your comment. You can say 草莓甜甜圈.😄
Let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
我很喜欢草莓的甜甜圈。
Hello Ben,
Thank you for your comment! 😄
You can say 我喜欢在学中文 => 我喜欢学中文.
As always, let us know if you have any questions.
Ngai Lam
Team ChineseClass101.com
我喜欢在学中文。 😄
Hi, Andrew,
Commonly, 英文 = 英语， 法文 = 法语， so 中文，英文，法文 = 中文，英语，法语。。。
Both of them are correct to say.:smile:
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hi Cho,
I am confused now. I saw your comment with Jano20 and you wrote what is 中文， 英文， 法文 etc..
Are these Chinese words not commonly used in China? Because where I am 中文， 英文 和法文 are always used。
I thought both were correct to say? Or is this a location thing?