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Lesson 16A1

Colors & Common Adjectives

Colors & Common Adjectives

Colors are a natural place to put the adjectives-as-verbs rule from the earlier 是/有 lesson into practice, and to meet 喜欢 (xǐhuan, to like) — one of the most useful verbs you'll learn.

Grammar Comparison

Grammar Comparison

Colors act as verbs too — no 是, just 很 + color

Chinese

天很蓝 (tiān hěn lán, The sky is blue)

English

The sky is blue

Just like 我很高 (I am tall) from the earlier lesson, describing something's color skips 是 entirely: 天很蓝 is "sky very blue", not 天是蓝. As before, 很 (hěn) here is often just a grammatical filler rather than true emphasis — dropping it (天蓝) can sound like an incomplete sentence, so it's safest to keep it in a plain statement.

喜欢 (xǐhuan) takes a noun or a verb directly, no "to" needed

Chinese

我喜欢红色 (I like red) — 我喜欢吃苹果 (I like eating apples)

English

I like red — I like eating apples

喜欢 (xǐhuan, to like) works exactly like other Chinese verbs you've met: it attaches directly to a noun (喜欢红色, like red) or another verb (喜欢吃, like to eat/eating) with nothing extra in between — no "to" and no gerund "-ing" ending required the way English needs one.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary

红色hóngsè
English
red
蓝色lánsè
English
blue
黄色huángsè
English
yellow
绿色lǜsè
English
green
黑色hēisè
English
black
白色báisè
English
white
喜欢xǐhuan
English
to like
tiān
English
sky
xīn
English
new
jiù
English
old (of things)
天很蓝tiān hěn lán
English
The sky is blue