Lesson 23 How to say “Although …” sentence pattern in Chinese

Posted by Grace Feng on June 25, 2012

Some Chinese sentence patterns are straightforward translation of the equivalent counterpart in English. There are not many variations for this kind of translation. Once you learned it once, you can use it in any context.

Today we’ll learn one sentence pattern of this kind in this Learn Chinese online lesson. Before we get into the core content, let’s have a quick review of the new words that you need to know first. Please use the estroke tool under the new word table to practice your writing if necessary:

jǐn guǎn	réng rán	hái shi
尽管 (although)	仍然 (still)	还是 (still)
bù huì	mǎi	bàofēngyǔ
不会 (won’t)	买 (buy)	暴风雨 (storm)
yǐ jīng	shī bài	cì
已经 (already)	失败 (fail)	次 (times)
kē xué jiā	jiān chí	shí yàn
科学家 (scientist)	坚持 (insist)	实验 (experiment)
zhēn shí	gǎn jué	gào su
真实 (real, true)	感觉 (feelings)	告诉 (tell)

 

You can copy and paste a few characters together into the box. They’ll show in the animation window one by one. Once the stroke animation stops, click in the animation window and hit ENTER to replay it. You can use the sliding bar to control writing speed of the animation.

 

Done? OK, let’s move on. The following example sentence is a typical “although” pattern in English:

“Although she like the book, she won’t buy it.”

To translate it into Chinese, the first thing that we need to find out is the equivalent Chinese word for keyword “although”. Luckily there is a word with exactly the same meaning in Chinese:

尽管 jǐnguǎn

Normally, “尽管” will be working with “仍然 réng rán” or “还是 hái shi” to form the complete although pattern sentence. “仍然” or “还是” means “still” when they are used individually. This is a big difference between English and Chinese. In English, you usually don’t need any other words to help “although” to express the twist. But in Chinese, you usually do need another word to help “尽管” to complete the twist. ”尽管” can also be used together with “也 yě” in this kind of sentence. However, sometimes, ”尽管” can also be used on its own.

Now let’s translate the example sentence into Chinese using the word combinations we just mentioned above:

jǐnguǎn tā xǐhuan zhè běn shū, tā háishi bùhuì mǎi de.

尽管她喜欢这本书, 她还是不会买的.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 

jǐnguǎn tā xǐhuan zhè běn shū, tā réngrán bùhuì mǎi de.

尽管她喜欢这本书, 她仍然不会买的.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Or simply take “还是” or “仍然” out. In this sentence, it still works!

jǐnguǎn tā xǐhuan zhè běn shū, tā bùhuì mǎi.

尽管她喜欢这本书, 她不会买.

 

Please pay attention to which position “还是” and “仍然” was placed in the sentence. It has to be before verb and after “who”:

她 + 还是 + 不会买的

 

Let’s practice a bit more:

jǐnguǎn míngtiān yǒu bàofēngyǔ, bàba háishi yào qù shàngbān.

尽管明天有暴风雨, 爸爸还是要去上班.

Although it’s going to have storm tomorrow, Dad will still go to work.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 

jǐnguǎn yǐjīng shībài le hěn duōcì, kēxuéjiā réngrán zài jiānchí zuò shíyàn.

尽管已经失败了很多次, 科学家仍然在坚持做实验.

Although he has failed for so many times, the scientist still persists on doing his tests.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 

jǐnguǎn tā ài tā, tā háishi méiyǒu bǎ zìjǐ de zhēnshí gǎnjué gàosu tā.

尽管他爱她, 他还是没有把自己的真实感觉告诉她.

Although he loves her, he just can’t tell her his true feelings.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Is it clear to you now? If you have any doubts, feel free to leave your questions in the comment area.

Good night, my friends!

 

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Category: JLC Chinese grammar lessons

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