A field guide for learners
Chinese Verbs
Chinese verbs, like English ones, fall into three broad categories: the verb 是 shì (“to be”), the verb 有 yǒu (“to have”), and the broad remaining set of action verbs.
Some teachers argue for a fourth category, treating Chinese adjectives as stative verbs.
The baseline
The Verb Does Not Change by Tense
A feature common to every Chinese verb: none of them conjugate for tense — much like Chinese nouns never change for number or role either. Instead, the timing of an action is carried by a separate time expression, placed before the verb or at the start of the sentence.
吃 chī — verb, “to eat”
That said, Chinese verbs do carry aspect markers — showing whether an action is completed, ongoing, or a past experience. These attach as a suffix to the verb: 了 le, 过 guò, or 着 zhe — or sit directly before the verb, as with 在 zài. Action verbs with no aspect marker at all usually express habitual action or intention.
Category one
The Verb 是 shì (to be)
是 shì links two equal nouns or noun phrases.
To link 是 shì with a description instead of a noun, you’ll usually need a 的 de alongside it — 的 de turns the whole description into a noun (the same 定语 dìngyǔ / attributive-modifier role covered in our grammar-terms guide).
Note: to say how dirty something is, you’ll need stative verbs instead.
Negation — Always Use 不 bù
Verbs Similar to 是 shì — 叫 jiào, 姓 xìng, 像 xiàng
Category two
The Verb 有 yǒu (to have)
A common mix-up: reaching for 有 yǒu where 是 shì belongs. Both are grammatical, but they answer different questions — 是 shì identifies what something is, while 有 yǒu states that something exists at a place. Reach for the wrong one and the sentence still works — it just answers a question you didn’t ask.
Indicating Possession
To negate 有 yǒu, always use 没 méi. What happens to the number and measure word depends on what exactly you’re negating — there are really three different situations hiding inside “don’t have.”
1. Negating existence. “I don’t have a dog” isn’t denying some specific count — there’s no dog at all, so there’s nothing to count. The number and measure word both disappear; “一隻” would imply you’re contesting a quantity, which makes no sense when the answer is zero.
2. Negating a specific quantity. “My house doesn’t have five rooms” is a different claim — it’s not saying the house has zero rooms, only that the number five is wrong. Here the number and measure word stay, because they’re exactly what’s being disputed.
3. Negating for emphasis. The number and measure word can also come back on purpose, paired with 都 dōu, to stress “not even one.” This isn’t counting anymore — it’s rhetorical, the Chinese equivalent of “I don’t have a single dog.”
Indicating Change or Development
Forming Idiomatic Expressions
有名有名famous · 有意思有意思interesting · 有錢有钱rich · 有空有空free time · 有禮貌有礼貌polite
Introducing Adjectival Predicates
When followed by 多 duō (“how”) and an adjective, this pattern asks about age, distance, size, and the like.
