alayeer Posted December 27, 2014 at 02:26 AM Report Posted December 27, 2014 at 02:26 AM Hello everyone! I'd like to ask your help please. Suppose I would like to say "That person who is cooking is my older sister". Is it grammatically correct to say the 2nd sentence? 1. 做饭的那个人是我姐姐。 2. 那个做饭的人是我姐姐。 The structure of the 1st sentence is the norm according to Chinese grammar, however I'm curious whether it's also okay to shift some of the words' placement. Does the 2nd sentence sound alright to the Chinese speakers? Thank you so much! Quote
li3wei1 Posted December 27, 2014 at 11:22 AM Report Posted December 27, 2014 at 11:22 AM I'm not a native speaker, but to me, the 1st sentence sounds like, "That person, the one making dinner, is my sister", while number 2 is "Of all the people making dinner, that particular one is my sister" Quote
maomao2014 Posted December 27, 2014 at 01:35 PM Report Posted December 27, 2014 at 01:35 PM As a Chinese native speaker, the 2nd sentence sounds fine.The differences of two sentences are the first sentence stress on cooking(做饭), the second sentence stress on that (那个). The second sentence feels like the sister is in distance and the the person is pointing at her. Quote
alayeer Posted January 26, 2015 at 03:50 AM Author Report Posted January 26, 2015 at 03:50 AM thank you very much for the replies! helped me a lot! Quote
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