Having trouble understanding this quick Chinese grammar video on word order.. Help?

[Ness]

So I'm trying to get the basic nuanaces of Chinese word order down. Can't find many helpful videos on the internet, but there is one in particular I stumbled upon. I'm having trouble understanding her examples though of Chinese word order in basic terms. She gives a basic outline which seems to make sense:
 
Subject (who/what)   +   When (action takes place)   +   Where (the action takes place)   +   How (the action takes place)   +   Action (verb +object)
 
However the second example of applying this principle doesn't make sense to make. Take a look at the video around the 2:13 mark where she applies a simple sentence in English to outline the example of how word order works in Chinese. That is where I'm having an issue understanding. I've watched the video several times and still don't understand her rationale. I think it's wrong.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9Be70LRAkw

 

In case you can't see the video, here is the example of the basic English sentence she outlined:

 

I

studied Chinese

for two hours

yesterday

 

When she rearranges it using the Chinese word order she claims it works this way:

 

(1) I

(3) studied Chinese

(4) for two hours

(2) yesterday

 

This doesn't make any sense at all to me. How is "studied Chinese" not the action phrase and therefore not last? Shoudn't this be the correct form?

 

(1) I (subject)

(4) studied Chinese (action)

(3) for two hours (how)

(2) yesterday (when)

 

I would really appreciate it if someone could help explain to me this simple issue. Just so I can know for sure. It's been bugging me since I'm still a beiggner at learning the grammar structure. Thanks. I feel I can't move forward with this person's videos since I'm clear on whether she's right or wrong abou this.

[Demonic_Duck]

I think the most natural way of saying it would be “我昨天学了两个小时中文” ( [yesterday] [studied] [two hours] [Chinese]). I guess "two hours" counts as part of the action phrase.

 

I'm not at all convinced that teaching Chinese grammar without using a single word of Chinese except for “你好”, “再见” and the teacher's own name is good pedagogy...

[Lu]

I can only listen with the sound off at the moment, but such a grammatical explanation really, really needs a number of Chinese example sentences. You can't teach Chinese grammar with English sentences (and why would you, unless perhaps you think that Chinese is so, so hard that you can't actually use it with students? or something?).

 

她去年在北京骑车上班。 Last year in Beijing she went to work by bike.

妈妈每年作火车回老家。 Every year mother takes the train back to her hometown.

 

So far so good.

 

What goes wrong in that video is that 'Yesterday I studied Chinese for two hours' doesn't work the same way in Chinese. The most obvious translation would be 我昨天学了两个小时的中文 (as DD says), but that translates more literally as 'I / yesterday / studied / two hours of Chinese', so subject-when-verb-object. There is no 'how' part in this sentence, because 'two hours of Chinese' is one concept. That doesn't quite fit into the nice little schedule the teacher gives in that video, so she should have used different sentences.

 

I suppose if you want to use that sentence and include a 'how', you can make something like:

我昨天在图书馆很努力地学了两个小时的中文。 'Yesterday I very diligently studied two hours of Chinese in the library.' (I / yesterday / in the library / very diligently / studied / two hours of Chinese.)

 

I hope this is of some help.

[Shelley]

I was taught sentence order can vary but it is best for beginners to follow this,

 

Subject     Time When     Place    Verb     Object     Time Duration

 

or you can think of it like this

 

Who    When    Where    How     What      Duration

 

The first two are interchangeable depending on what you what to emphasise and of course you may not have all of these things in every sentence.

 

So using your example, your sentence follows this pattern

 

I (who),  yesterday (when),  study (how),   chinese (what),   2 hours (duration).

 

As Chinese does not have tenses, it is important to say when you did something so you say it at the beginning of the sentence and to avoid confusion how long you did it for goes at the end.

 

As mentioned before it is odd to teach Chinese grammar using English, try to find a different teacher/video or try a book, several were discussed here http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/48925-best-grammar-book/

 

I would also suggest having a look at http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/

 

Hope this helps.

 

[xiaokaka]

I agree with Shelley that the Chinese Grammar Wiki is a wonderful resource and they actually have a very good page on word order here: http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Word_order

Their word order is:

Subject Time when Manner Location Instrument Target Verb phrase Time duration

I suggest you read the page to get familiar with the terms and they have a lot of examples of different kinds of sentences as well.

With your example:

(Subject) I (Time when) yesterday (Verb phrase) studied Chinese (Time duration) for two hours

[mouse]

I liked this comment on the video:

 

"我看你的视频学英语，很有效果啊"

[Demonic_Duck]

Can I suggest that people henceforth include the Chinese version in addition to the "Chinese-ordered English" version in their replies, rather than following the bad example of the original video? Otherwise, it becomes confusing. I would interpret this:

 

(Subject) I (Time when) yesterday (Verb phrase) studied Chinese (Time duration) for two hours

 

As this:

 

“我昨天学中文两个小时”

 

...which looks wrong to me, or at the very least awkward.

[Ness]

Thank you everyone for the responses. I read every single one of them. Yeah I got the feeling something was weird with that video. Or at least, it wasn't explained well enough for me. And I didn't appear to be the only reading the YouTube comments. Having it further discussed here makes me feel a little better. I am aware of the Grammar wiki that has been outlined here on this site. I haven't had much of a chance to sit down and really dig in. Now though with more time on my hands to get back into studying Chinense again, I think I'll have the opportunity.

 

I remember back in college when I took Chinese for a couple semesters (a few years ago) my teacher give us a basic outline of word order.

 

Subject + Verb + Object

 

 

 

And then a more complex outline to keep in mind later.

 

 

 

Adjective (time) + Subject + Adverb + Verb + Adjective/Object + Particle.

 

 

 

Not sure how that stacks up with what people know here, but yeah. Going to look at the Grammar wiki and try to get more aquianted. Thanks again for the responses folks. This is a long journey and I'm obviously going to need help along the way.

[Ness]

By the way, any good grammar books out there with Traditional characters? I'm not learning simplified. I want to read Yip-Po Ching's book "Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook", but it's in simplified.

 

The Grammar wiki that has been discussed here is cool because I can change the character setting with a browser extension I've noticed. I was just wondering book-wise if there was anything out there that is helpful. Thanks.

[Michaelyus]

Note that there are two ways of expressing "duration": the one cited above is like a measure of the object (兩個小時的中文, literally two hours' Chinese).

 

You can also express it as a comment on the verb (which fits into the duration after the verb phrase). That is the one taken by AllSet Learning above. For this, you must remember to duplicate the verb: 我昨天學中文，學了兩個小時。