Negation in Mandarin | Chinese Grammar Lesson

Struggling with when to use "不" and "没" for negation in Chinese? This video will clarify the difference and help you master the correct way of expressing "no" or "not" in Mandarin. Enhance your understanding of negation in Chinese today!
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⚡️ Time code:
00:00 Introduction
01:00 Expressing the Non-existence of a Noun
02:04 Difference between 不 and 没
03:02 When to Use 不
08:55 When to Use 没
13:46 Recap of Today’s Lesson
14:32 Thank you for watching to the end!
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[@GD-jc3wx]

This can easily be the best Chinese learning channel there is. Kudos to you!

[@D.Wapher]

講解得很不錯，畫面提示都上得滿準確的，相信一定能幫到很多學習的人。

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Are there any other grammar points or difficulties you're encountering while learning Chinese? Let me know in the comments below. It could potentially turn into a future video topic! - 📝 For those of you who are learning Chinese with Zhuyin (bopomofo) system: gracemandarinchinese.com/negation-in-mandarin-_-chinese-grammar-lesson/

[@ravigowdaravigowda9504]

I love Chinese girl 💘💞🌹👍

[@lucyanakumala1951]

Hi Grace, can you make a video about 倒 please? Been trying to grasp the concept for a while but still quite confused. Thank you! 🥰

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

@@lucyanakumala1951 Could you provide me some context? I'll better understand what you might be confused about. Thanks!

[@pocchakotea]

How about 想 and 要 when expressing "to want"

[@pinkgoldpeach51]

How and when to omit part of a sentence in chinese?

[@i_am_ravs]

Luckily, our language (Filipino) has a similar negation system, thus this doesn't really come as that difficult to learn and remember. We have "Wala" = Méi 没 (None) and "Hindi/Dili" = Bù 不 (No, Not) and both work the same way as with Chinese Tho there's a slight difference in one local language. In our main language (Tagalog Filipino), if we want to say "We don't know", we say "Hindi ko alam", which is equivalent to 我不知道. But with one local language (Bisaya), we don't say "Dili ko kabalo" (我不知道) when we're asked if we know something, but only if we know how to do something. For the former, we say "Wala ko kabalo" which is almost equivalent to 我没知道. I just find this interesting

[@wheresmyeyebrow1608]

The 没…过 negation seems extremely similar to the French ‘ne…pas’ negation system that’s pretty wicked : D

[@feralenergy9123]

Do u cover Cheng Yu ? kzbin.info/www/bejne/f5aym2Rpodxritk

[@ChinaVlog417]

they all have similarity

[@boudjellabdjihane1685]

Exactement oui

[@jssmedialangs]

This is useful! I've always thought of 不 as present negation and 没(有) as past, so this is a reminder to not see them so singularly and rather just feel out the nuance of it instead. 😅 谢谢 ! 你很厉害，我非常喜欢你的视频啊 ! 🤗

[@ChinaVlog417]

wow...cool, just consistency is the key...you will surely learn chinese...its easy

[@badczark22]

Thank you Laoshi. You are the best mandarin teacher and I am already using your teachings on my daily life at work here in taiwan. 很謝謝你。

[@brucehoang6375]

One of the best lesson plans and presentations - thank you so much.

[@andregonsalves1139]

Oh my, this video helped me a lot. I've had so much difficulties on how to use these negative sentences. Thank you very much!

[@jomelbermas459]

Thanks for making this video on when to use either 没/没有 or 不. My next question could you explain when I can omit parts of a sentence?

[@keikei4786]

I love your lessons! Your presentation is the best!

[@alekid]

Excellent explanation. Thank you!

[@cutezhaolin]

gracias por la explicación incluso en estos pequeños detalles tenemos que ser cuidadosos. tu explicación es bastante buena gracias por tu excelente trabajo.

[@OK-otic]

生知道了！！ 很好学！ 谢谢Grace老师！

[@johnkueh]

Thank you Grace

[@SanJoseCAJeff]

Grace, very helpful this video, thanks

[@josephbowen9666]

Amazing teacher, thank you so much.❤

[@yazars]

Thank you for another great lesson! You explained the different usages clearly

[@feralenergy9123]

Do u cover Cheng Yu ? kzbin.info/www/bejne/f5aym2Rpodxritk

[@toinsola]

thanks so much I really enjoy your videos

[@plaidygami]

Thank you! Been struggling trying to understand when to use Bu and Mei.

[@ThreeKingdoms-]

谢谢老师

[@laraqdangel]

Thaank you! I really neaded this explanation!

[@smartyoudao]

Amazing Video Grace!

[@axelgomez7819]

I like the role plays Grace! Great job

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Glad you liked it! 🥰

[@avinrajraj1621]

As I am a indian, I am really like to learn Chinese and this channel make my Chinese pronounce improve. And now I am speaking few sentences in Chinese with my Chinese friend

[@bleepblop]

谢谢，this is a little unrelated from this video, but I was wondering if you’ve done a video on the difference between 会/可以/能 and/or one on the difference between 需要/要/必须/得 and all the words that mean you have to/must do something. I didn’t see one and these always confuse me

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Thank you for the suggestion!

[@nasiralkhalafi2748]

You are best teacher 👏👏🥰🥰..keep going

[@dogfish9797]

Such a good video

[@trevor246]

Thank you for making this!! 我很喜欢你的视频！

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

很高興你喜歡（很高兴你喜欢）！💛

[@trevor246]

@@GraceMandarinChineseI can't read traditional so thanks for putting simplified!! 我也高兴！！

[@nauticoom]

多谢多谢

[@nomore2379]

Grace 👍

[@mam1621]

Thanks

[@pwongil]

감사합니다 그레이스 선생님 😀 Thanks Grace. You are so amazing and amusing as well as pretty 😍 💖

[@peanutsandpop]

Hi Grace! I have enjoyed the videos that I have watched on your channel. However, I've taken a rather unorganized approach - just one here and there. I am a relative beginner who lives in Taiwan, and I would really like to follow your program so that I can make more significant progress. Can you suggest an order to watch and study your videos so I can begin to feel that I am improving?

[@deontesampson1991]

😃Grace!❤️ Excellent breakdown of the two super helpful spoken like a true President as always. 👩‍🏫💡 🗣️👂👀👏🥳🥇🥇🥇 #Grace4president❤️ #Every Year #Nodebate

[@Verbalaesthet]

I learned it like this: BU is the normal negation and MEI is to negate YOU, the past and the continuous form. This might be more easy to grasp than a theoretical explanation.

[@marion6695]

Great

[@reeb3687]

to relate to (indo) european languages, it seems like 没 expresses more of a perfective quality (have not / there is not), while 不 is more ongoing (does not)

[@redblizzard3558]

Thank you Grace, excellent video, you are making learning this difficult language much easier🙂 There's one mistake though: you don't need to lose weight!😉

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Hahaha alright I guess I can reward myself with some midnight snack today 😎

[@redblizzard3558]

@@GraceMandarinChinese You certainly can, but only for tonight! Tomorrow back to the gym! 😉 Joking aside, thank and take care☺

[@asaasa7900]

Actually the difference is similar in a REALLY WEIRD way with Dutch in the Netherlands, like the difference between zijn/hebben as auxiliary words to form the perfect past. Ik heb dit gedaan (I have done this) Ik ben dit geworden (I have (literally: I am) become this)

[@confucius981]

Teacher any tips about calligraphy ? 🇨🇳

[@georgeweng2208]

Why did you use 不 for the verb to find. Doesn't the verb to find mplies an action?

[@mginger3803]

This is so helpful! As I'm learning chinese atm as well, I have so many questions.. Ta hen gao is he's "very" tall right? So how do we say "he's tall"? Is "hen" and "feichang" actually the same? And could we just omit the word "de".. As I remember its usually "wo de mei mei" is wo mei mei more informal?

[@jinghaodeng6167]

To my understand when we use "hen" in front of an adjective, it is usually used as an adverb to indicate degree, which is generally equivalent to he is XXX in English, but note that "hen" can also be understood as "very" depending on the context or tone of voice.

[@bleepblop]

From what I know, fei Chang is a higher degree than hen and hen often is just there to connect the adjective and not to mean very (in sentences like 他很高。) You can omit the de for family members (like 我妹妹）and for something like 家 （我家）but you def can’t do that in every case where 的 appears for possessives.

[@jinkies2609]

hi! i was told by my textbook that 沒 negation (i.e. 我沒時間) is more common in mainland china than in taiwan, where 沒有 is more common. how true is this, if you’re aware? thanks! :0

[@VieShaphiel]

Although Grace hasn't replied to this, my experience as a Taiwanese is that we use both 沒 and 沒有 pretty regularly. I guess what the textbook was trying to say is that 沒有 is more common in Taiwan than in China?

[@ted4687]

哦。教中文也可以几十万订阅🎉🎉🎉

[@GuranPurin]

I’ve always found it interesting how similarly 没有 can be used compared to what it translates to in English, “have not”. For example “don’t have” and “haven’t” aren’t conveyed the same way in Spanish. Whereas both English and Mandarin use the expression of “have” and “not” either as “haven’t” or “don’t have” to generally convey the same idea. Very interesting!

[@thinksie]

I think "No había" connected to verb(past) or noun can have both meanings of "didn't have", or "haven't done something"

[@GuranPurin]

@@thinksie But it doesn't also mean "to have", as in "to have something," which is where the difference lies.

[@thinksie]

@@GuranPurin Technically it has a meaning of "to have something", it just doesn't describe a person. More like a place. I think it's because the old "aver" did mean to have as in "to have something". But the only thing that is left from that usage is the impersonal usage as in "No había chocolate", "No hay más". But I know what you mean. Not exactly the same, in English you'd use was/were to say that something was(or wasn't) somewhere (; Therefore you're right, it no longer describes possession, except if we count that a place can possess something.

[@wheresmyeyebrow1608]

Is using 没 on its own as opposed to 没有 seen as informal?

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

I've seen some people pointing this out in their research papers. This might be valid. However, I checked the data in a Chinese corpus and didn't see this difference, so I'm not 100% sure about whether 沒有 is definitely more formal than 沒. (And this is why I didn't bring it up in the video)

[@wheresmyeyebrow1608]

@@GraceMandarinChinese 谢谢你的回复！

[@leslyatencio2772]

2:42

[@TheModicaLiszt]

There are a lot of split infinitives in English in this video where you say “to not have” instead of “not to have”. Apart from this, great explanation :)

[@bleepblop]

To not have is honestly more natural in the “definition” of a word (like how it says to know as a definition and stuff like that) and it seems more understandable. It’s pretty normal for text books and general language information from my experience. When we use English, people hardly mind split infinitives anyways; it’s really like splitting hairs at this point.

[@TheModicaLiszt]

@@bleepblop It isn’t splitting hairs, it’s purely ungrammatical. I disagree, a split infinitive always sounds ghastly and clunky in a sentence, even in conversation.

[@notsomberr]

4:53 sorry for the question but aren't you supposed to use 的? because its "MY little sister"? Do you get rid of it when you put the sentence in the negatives?

[@user-vt9bp2ei1w]

"我" can be directly used as an adjective. So you can just use expressions like "她是我妹". (She is I(adj)-sister = She is my sister) As far as I know, all pronouns in Chinese can do this. So "你小孩..." "他房子..." "它尾巴..." etc. are all correct usages.

[@Kotsuyosama]

In daily Chinese, when A has a very close or strong connection to B, it's quite often to say "AB" rather than "A的B" 😂(both A and B can be someone or something). Such as 我（的）父母- my parents; 小王（的）家-Wang's home; 房间（的）钥匙-key to the room... But as a Chinese speaker, I have to say it's hard to find a rule about when to add 的 and when to drop 的, and you may have already find the expression of those three above are different in English but the same in Chinese (the overuse of 的, not to mention the prompt word of a clause in Chinese is also 的😅). The key point is, when we realize that the next sentense that we are going to say will contain a lot of 的, we will try to drop 的 as long as it make sense. For example: 这是我（的）同学（的）爸爸刚给他买的车。This is the car that my classmate's father just bought for him.

[@NickvonZ]

VIRGO POWER!!

[@josephmak0865]

for "不" is it second tone (bu2) or fourth tone (bu4)? I see you use both

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

There is a tone change rule for 不, I’ve explained it in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rJ2TlnudhbVrg9U I hope it will clear up your confusion!

[@josephmak0865]

@@GraceMandarinChinese thank you. You are an awesome teacher

[@nihil303]

Is it simplified? A lot of characters different from the ones I learned before

[@Flyingsearat]

In the video there’s both trad and simplified im pretty sure

[@Mordred.migiri]

I still don't get one thing. What kind of negation I shold use in asking someone not to do something. Like "don't open the door". I'm not sure is opening the door a dynamic situation? 没开门 sounds kinda wierd for me...

[@bleepblop]

I’m just learning too but I think you would say 不要开门 for don’t open the door

[@lululovesrkelly]

没开门 means it's not open, e.g. 商店今天没开（门）, the shop is not open today.

[@williamcanton5825]

那个句"无"是何用啦? 比如"没用" vs. "无用".

[@mklinger23]

Why does 不 switch between bú and bù?

[@azamarabear]

OMG this This content is complicated

[@adamrydz]

So is this correct (a hypothetical situation at a dinner table)?: - Do you eat beef? 你吃不吃牛肉？ - I eat beef, but Today I don't eat beef, I eat chicken.　我吃牛肉，　但是今天我沒吃牛肉，　我吃雞肉我

[@user-vy3wh2jj3g]

“不”“没”也可以用在疑问句末 比如“你吃饭了不？”“你吃饭了没？” 这时“不”“没”这两个词没有区别

[@RyGuy36]

希望這個影片最後一部分有小考試 例如：那個地方太遠，我__想陪你去

[@TheBank1992]

stinky tofu in Changsha, is the best.…

[@leslyatencio2772]

Hi I’m new here

[@ChinaVlog417]

your welcome

[@picmian]

谢谢 (∩__∩)

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Thank you for your support! 🥰

[@goldtheone]

(my english is not good) Did you make a donation? how can I do it? is a credit card needed?

[@picmian]

@@goldtheone I did. The system is called Super Thanks and you can donate via PayPal, for example.

[@goldtheone]

@@picmian oh I saw now, I made a little research about it and I understood then. thanks for explained to me

[@woodies2009]

沒和不的區別，有時候我很混亂！哈哈哈

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

希望這個影片對你有幫助！

[@arnoldong8900]

Xie Xie madam 2 lesson 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@francescohiandraa6687]

You Look so much like bae suzy 😂

[@EsaiasP]

No, she doesn't. She is pretty. Suzy has a plastic surgery face, which makes her automatically unattractive.

[@RedFishRunnings]

You're beautiful

[@salmaster8256]

xie xie ni.

[@amtulhafeez8941]

I get confused in traditional and simplified Chinese

[@ChinaVlog417]

globally, mandarin is used that is the the simplified Chinese

[@defresenespanol1513]

xie xie

[@stevenisidore5094]

我是美国人，我是处女座，我要我的爱人在芬兰还是瑞典。为什么芬兰还是瑞典人在芬兰和瑞典有很漂亮的头发和看一看，和瑞典人和芬兰人也会说英文。在6月2023我没有爱人。

[@davidwinet5607]

You are mistaken if you think the decision to not do something is stable and unchanging! Or you never met my wife! :)

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

😂😂😂

[@user-mu6zv1hc9w]

他不高和他没有那么高都对吧😂

[@raychen0322]

要不是習以為常，不會發現中文也太難了吧😂

[@wavygravy1945]

I need a video to tell me when to wave bye bye with one hand or two hands,

[@vintageguitarz1]

Best lesson ever! Learned so much. Like your face with glasses. You are very pretty, excellent English... you should find handsome American boy, your children will be so beautiful!

[@stevemiller2706]

Dear Grace, Thank you for doing this. This comment is next solely to make suggestions for you to think about. 🙏 I know alot about alot. Mostly, I know so very little. As Sergeant Schultz used to say " I know Nothing. " I very much want to learn to speak-understand 'some' Chinese. I am realistic in that I know odds are not good. Please consider altering your future presentations, so the English Words or concepts are "always " stated First and then Restated or Redisplayed, 'at the TOP of the screen' rather than bottoms. And, Restated on EVERY Screen with pingying 🦧🐔 Logic is .... English i have now thus it must come first. Hearing your foreign words are THEN linked to English knowledge. Otherwise ..... foreign words "first" equal gibberish- nonsense, and ATTACH to NOTHINGNESS. And please do not expect me to Remember PRIOR screen, when you go to next. Thus repetition for Dummy. And CAPS are not screaming here, but perhaps whispering key stuff into your cute ears (cuz you like me, I get close 😉) 🦊 Please reply. Please ask for more comment if this is unclear. Also More thoughts if you are interested. 🙏 ⚘🌺🌻🌸 I realized I should go back and confirm your "cute ears". And yes, I see ear at 6:34 (& 7:33) and then I also realized my focus on language learning had me overlooking how cute you are overall 😍. And, please forgive my self-indulgent distraction, your 💋 lips..... mmm. Nice. Perhaps watching your sweet lips will make learning easier. I certainly won't get bored. I hope you are not going to throw me out of class. 💓