Inviting/Making a Suggestion in Mandarin

New Words

• No	Mandarin	Pinyin	English
  1	忙	máng	busy
  2	今天	jīntiān	today
  3	明天	míngtiān	tomorrow
  4	昨天	zuótiān	yesterday
  5	前天	qiántiān	the day before yesterday
  6	后天	hòutiān	the day after tomorrow
  7	看	kàn	to watch
  8	电影	diànyǐng	movie
  9	逛逛	guàng guàng	take a stroll
  10	公园	gōngyuán	park

• Asking if Someone Busy

你忙吗?

Nǐ máng ma?

If you are very busy, you can answer:

我很忙。

If you are not busy, your answer should be:

我不忙。

Remember that you don’t need to translate the ‘be’ (English) into Mandarin because the word 忙(máng) is an adjective. So we don’t need the be 是(shì). We usually use 是(shì) to connect subject and noun. For example:

我是印度尼西亚人。

我是老师。

Here, we need 是(shì) because 印度尼西亚人( Yìndùníxīyǎ rén) and 老师 (lǎoshī) are nouns. Subject and noun need 是(shì) to connect.

Let’s see some other examples of adjectives in sentences.

他的日语好吗?

Tā de rìyǔ hǎo ma?

他的日语很好。

Tā de rìyǔ hěn hǎo.

他的日语不好。

Tā de rìyǔ bù hǎo.

Now, let’s insert the time words into the sentences. ( You can see them in the table above).

你今天忙吗?

Nǐ jīntiān máng ma?

Are you busy today?

你明天忙吗?

Nǐ míngtiān máng ma?

Are you busy tomorrow?

In Mandarin, we put the time word (今天,明天) after the subject.

• Inviting/Making a Suggestion

Usually, if someone asks you if you are busy, he/she plans to spend sometime with you. He/she may want to invite you to have dinner or watch a movie, etc.

Then you can ask him/her back by using the following expression to know why he/she asks you so.

怎么了 (zěnme le)? which means what’s up?

Then if he/she wants to, for example, invite you to watch a movie, he/she will say the following expression:

我们去看电影吧!

Wǒmen qù kàn diànyǐng ba!

Let’s watch a movie!

If he/she wants to invite you to have dinner together, then he/she will say the following sentence:

我们一起吃晚饭吧!

Wǒmen yīqǐ chī wǎnfàn ba!

Let’s have dinner together!

Actually, we put the word 吧 (ba) at the end of the sentences to indicate a suggestion.

If you think the suggestion is good, you can say ‘好 (hǎo)!’ to respond. But if you think that the suggestion is not only good but fantastic, you can say ‘好啊!(hǎo a)’ 啊 (a) here is to express enthusiasm, that you really like the suggestion. To make it more clear, let’s see the following dialogue:

X: 你今天忙吗？

X: Nǐ jīntiān máng ma?

Y: 我今天很忙。

Y: Wǒ jīntiān hěn máng.

X:你明天忙吗？

X: Nǐ míngtiān máng ma?

Y:我明天不忙。怎么了？

Y: Wǒ míngtiān bù máng zěnmele?

X:我们去逛逛吧！

X: Wǒmen qù guàng guàng ba!

Y:去逛逛哪里？

Y: Qù guàng guàng nǎlǐ?

X:我们去公园吧！

X: Wǒmen qù gōngyuán ba!

Y:好啊!

Y: Hǎo a!

Filed under: Mandarin Chinese

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