Sentence pattern · Band 3
Topic first: put the thing you are talking about up front
话题 + 主语 + 动词
Mandarin likes to seat the star of the sentence up front and comment on it after: this book, I have read it; that movie, we all liked it. English saves this move for drama; Mandarin uses it at dinner every day. No pronoun echoes the star either, since it already has the best seat.
Hear it in a sentence
Mistakes people make
Once the thing sits up front as the topic it retires from the sentence; no echo pronoun stands in for it.
The fronted thing is what the action happens to, not the doer; the person follows the topic.
Words in this pattern
Quick answers
What does 主题句：这本书我看过 mean?
Mandarin likes to seat the star of the sentence up front and comment on it after: this book, I have read it; that movie, we all liked it. English saves this move for drama; Mandarin uses it at dinner every day. No pronoun echoes the star either, since it already has the best seat.
How do you build it?
话题 + 主语 + 动词
What is the most common mistake?
这本书我看过它。 → 这本书我看过。
Once the thing sits up front as the topic it retires from the sentence; no echo pronoun stands in for it.
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