Minor Grammar problem

[ThomasSmith]

Hello

I've only literally just began my learning of Mandarin, so the problem will be trivial to most i'm sure.. but I hope someones able to explain

I'm working through a workbook, and one of the exercises is asking me to analyse some sentences.

One of which is:

She has Chinese Friends

ta you zhongguo pengyoumen (missing all the necessary notation i know, but i havent a clue how to efficiently type it.)

The book also shows the traditional symbols, but i don't know how to type using them efficiently either lol

Anyway, the answer states that 'men' was not required/incorrect, and I was hoping someone could explain the reasoning behind it?

Thanks a lot

Tom

[jbradfor]

missing all the necessary notation i know, but i havent a clue how to efficiently type it

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/10274-pinyinput-type-pinyin-with-tone-marks/

The book also shows the traditional symbols, but i don't know how to type using them efficiently either

come on, that's what google is for. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Add-or-change-an-input-language .

[ThomasSmith]

Thanks for replying

I probably, in hindsight, wrote my first letter in a roundabout manner. I would have googled those things, my concern was just regarding the grammar issue.

Either way - thank you for supplying me with those two links, as I do obviously need to explore such things

x

[Don_Horhe]

们 after nouns denoting people is usually used when talking about or addressing a specific group. Think of it as sort of marking definiteness alongside plurality.

[renzhe]

The 们 plural marker is only used after personal pronouns and in very few select phrases. Most nouns do not have special plural forms. 朋友 means both "friend" and "friends".

朋友 is a bit special in that 朋友们 is actually a valid phrase, but only in some contexts, like addressing somebody directly. When in doubt, leave it out.

[ThomasSmith]

Great!

Thanks a lot everyone, really appreciate it.

Thom