If you’re just starting your Chinese-learning journey, good news: on the whole, tenses are much simpler to learn than if you were learning English from scratch.
English tenses, especially the past tense, depend on whether a verb is regular or irregular. For example, ‘walk’ becomes ‘walked’ and ‘listen’ becomes ‘listened’, but ‘eat’ becomes ‘ate’, ‘hold’ becomes ‘held’, and ‘cost’ doesn’t even change.
And that’s just one ‘rule with exceptions’ for tenses in English.
Unlike English’s complex system of verb conjugations for past, present and future, Mandarin simply uses context, time words and particles to indicate when an action has taken or will take place.
This beginner’s guide to Chinese tenses breaks down the basics of how to express the timing of actions in Mandarin.
The present continuous tense: 在 (zài)
Here, 在 can be used as an auxiliary verb to describe something that’s not only happening in the present, but continuing to happen right now.
For example:
我吃饭 Wǒ chīfàn – I eat.
我在吃饭 Wǒ zài chīfàn – I’m eating.
我看书 Wǒ kànshū – I read books.
我在看书 – Wǒ zài kànshū – I’m reading a book.
The past tense: 了 (le)
The particle ‘了’ is often one of the first that Mandarin learners encounter, and it’s commonly associated with the past tense. While this is often true, its real use is broader: it’s used to indicate a completion of action or change of state.
To use it as a ‘past tense’ marker, it’s simply placed after a verb to show something has finished.
For example:
我吃饭了 Wǒ chīfàn le – I have eaten.
他买了一个香蕉 Tā mǎi le yīgè xiāngjiāo – He bought a banana.
It’s important to remember that 了 doesn’t always signify the past. Remember, it can be used to indicate that a change has happened. But for beginners, thinking of it as a marker for completed actions – which are often in the past – is a great start.
The present perfect tense: 过 (guò)
The present perfect tense is used to describe something that happened in the past that is now relevant in the present. 过 is used to say you ‘have done’ something, or if something ‘has ever’ happened before.
It’s simply used after a verb, for example:
你吃过北京烤鸭吗? Nǐ chī guò běijīng kǎoyā ma? – Have you ever eaten Beijing roast duck?
我吃过北京烤鸭 Wǒ chī guò běijīng kǎoyā – I have eaten Beijing roast duck before.
The key difference between 了 and 过 is that 了emphasises completion of an action, while 过 highlights the experience of an action.
The future tense: 会 (huì)
One of the easiest ways to express that something will happen in the future is to use the auxiliary verb 会.
For example:
明天会下雨 Míngtiān huì xià yǔ – It will rain tomorrow.
我会给你打电话 Wǒ huì gěi nǐ dǎ diànhuà – I will call you.
As with any language, there’s more to tenses than just a few simple rules. But once you’ve mastered these Chinese tense basics, expressing actions will become so much easier, and you’ll have a solid foundation to build your knowledge on.
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