Chinese has two words for "is"!? || 是 vs 很
Student: “How do you say ‘is’ in Chinese?”
Me: “ ‘shì’ “
Student: “Cool. Wǒ shì è” (“I am hunger”)
Me: “Wait, nooooooo!”
It sounds about as awkward in Chinese as it does in English. :P
“Shì” means “is, to be, am”, but we can’t use it as loosely as in English.
In Chinese, so there are many places where we still need to use it! But we need to learn WHEN to use it and when to use other words instead. 😁
Now a lot of people overcompensate when someone tells them “Oh, we can’t use ‘shì’ here”, and they become afraid to use it at all, and stop using it altogether!
What, no!
“Shì” is a VERY commonly used word (and sound) in Chinese, so there are many places where we still need to use it!
But we need to learn WHEN to use it and when to use other words instead.
When to use “shì”
Shì is only used for “noun + is + noun”.
✅✅✅ noun + shì + noun ✅✅✅
Tā shì Zhōngguórén.He is a China person (He is Chinese). (“ren2” is the noun here)
Nǐ shì xuéshēng ma?
Are you a student?
Seattle shì wǒ de lǎojiā.
Seattle is my hometown (literally “old home”)
To negate, we just add “bù” before it.
Tā bù shì Zhōngguórén.He is not a China person (He is not Chinese).
Nǐ bù shì xuéshēng ma?
You are not a student? (“I thought you were!”)
Seattle bù shì wǒ de lǎojiā.
Seattle is not my hometown (literally “old home”)
When to NOT use “shì”
We will NEVER say “noun + shì + adjective”.
Whenever you use “shì”, the person will immediately think what you say next is a noun. Which makes them think weird things like “I am hunger”. Save the poetic speech for later please 😜
❌❌❌ noun + shì + adjective ❌❌❌
When we want to say “noun + is + adjective”, we have to use something called an “intensifier”.
Intensifiers are words like:
very, extremely, a little
These words allow us to say how “adj” something is.
- “You are very pretty.”
- “She is so tall.”
- “I am too busy!”
✅✅✅ noun + intensifier + adjective ✅✅✅
And unlike English, we have one intensifier that essentially serves as “is” for adjectives.
That word is “hěn”.
(pronounced like "hun"_t, not a female chicken)
Student: Wait, doesn’t “hěn” mean “very”?
Me: Actually, no. At least not really with adjectives.
“Hěn” is the most basic intensifier and merely serves as a connector of nouns and adjectives.
Below is a list of a few common intensifiers and examples.
Bù → “is not”
Tā bù gāo.
He is not tall.
Yǒuyīdiǎn → “is a little bit”
Tāde tóufa yǒuyīdiǎn cháng.
His hair is a little bit long.
Hěn → “is”
Háizi de yīfú hěn hǎokàn.
(The) child’s clothing is nice looking.
Fēicháng → “is very”
Zhèfèn cài fēicháng hǎochī.
This dish is very tasty.
Zuì → “is the most”
Wēn lǎoshī de zhōngwén zuìhǎo.
Teacher Wen’s Chinese is the most good (the best).
Tài...le
Zhè ge cài tài hǎochī le!
This dish is so tasty!
Zhè ge cài tài là le!
This dish is too spicy!
Negating with intensifiers
“Very not good”
When we want to negate an adjective, we simply add “bù” right in front of the adjective. Just like in English, we can do that with other intensifiers to say something is “very not good”.
Let’s look at some examples.
Fēicháng + bù → “is very not”
Zhèfèn cài fēicháng bù hǎochī.
This dish is very not tasty.
Zuì + bù→ “is the most not”
Wēn lǎoshī de zhōngwén zuì bù hǎo.
Teacher Wen’s Chinese is the most not good (the worst).
Obviously Chinese has words like “disgusting” and “worst”, but this is a really good way to get more mileage out of the vocabulary we already know, and to say things in different ways.
“Not very good”
We don’t usually say things like “not really good” in Chinese, just like we don’t in English. The most common way to say this in Mandarin is “Not THAT/too + adj”.
Here, we want to use “tài”.
Bù tài → “not THAT/too..”
Zhè ge cài bù tài hǎochī.
This dish is not too/that tasty.
Zhè ge cài bù tài là.
This dish is not too/that spicy. (We don’t need to use “le” when negating.)
Mixing “shì” and “adjectives”
Now, what about when we are combining both descriptors and nouns?
In that case, we want to use “shì”, and we just place the adjective in front of the noun we are describing.
✅✅✅ noun + shì + (adjective + (de)) + noun ✅✅✅
Examples where we can use shì with adjectives:
Tā shì (yī gè) hǎorén.
He is [a] good person.
Zhè shì (yī gè) hóngsè de píngguǒ.
This is [a] red apple.
Nà shì (yī gè) hěn kuài de chē.
That is [a] fast car.
Recap:
When to use “shì”.
Noun + shì + noun (He is my brother.)Noun + shì + adjective (de) + noun (He is my favorite brother.)