Express yourself like a Chinese local - 这样

When you start to learn how to speak Chinese, you must have noticed that there are some words that you've never seen in the textbook, but you've heard a lot from Chinese people. 

Sometimes, it's just a small group of words that quickly glide through native speakers' mouths, which annoys you so much because you almost understand every single word, but in reality, you don't.

In this series of posts, we're gonna introduce you this "dead angle" of the textbook to help you bridge the gap between the textbook and the real-world language.

The first word that we want to explain is:

这样 - zhèyàng

This word means "this kind" or "like this".

Listen to the audio below to learn how to use this word:

When you listen to Chinese people say this word among the language flow, it doesn't sound very clear like "zhèyàng", it sounds quicker like zhè'ang (listen to the audio at the end of the article). In the area around Shanghai, people also like to say "这样子zhèyàngzi", adding a very typical dialectical suffix.

The most typical pattern you might have heard from Chinese people is this:

"这样的+N" means "this kind of N" or "N like this".

For example:

1) 我已经有两条这样的裤子了。

Wǒ yǐjīng yǒu liǎng tiáo zhèyàng de kùzi le。

I have already had two trousers like this.

2) 再出现这样的情况怎么办？

Zài chūxiàn zhèyàng de qíngkuàng zěnmebàn？

What to do when this kind of situation happens again?

Besides, you can also use "zhèyàng" in this way:

这样+(V), means do it in this way. You can also omit the verb.

For example:

1) 你可以这样说，你也可以这样写。

Nǐ kěyǐ zhèyàng shuō, nǐ yě kěyǐ zhèyàng xiě.

You can speak in this way, you can also write in this way.

2) 你怎么可以这样？

Nǐ zěnme kěyǐ zhèyang?

How can you be like this?

Got it? From now on, start to use "这样" to express "in this way, like this"!

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