Nǐ jiā yǒu jǐ ge rén?
How many people are there in your family?
This sentence uses the question word 几 to ask how many of the noun 人. The verb 有 is used to indicate possession in Chinese and the object is placed after the verb.
你 (nǐ): you家 (jiā): family有 (yǒu): have几个 (jǐ ge): how many人 (rén): people
Rúguǒ nǐ xiǎng xué zhōngwén, kěyǐ cānjiā wǒ de hànyǔ kè.
If you want to learn Chinese, you can join my Chinese class.
This sentence uses the conditional '如果' to introduce a potential scenario and the verb '想' meaning 'to want'. The verb '学' means 'to learn'. The sentence includes the auxiliary verb '可以' which indicates permission or capability to do something. The verb '参加' means 'to participate in'. The pronoun '我的' means 'my'. The noun '汉语' means 'Chinese language' and the noun '课' means 'class'.
如果 (rúguǒ): if你 (nǐ): you想 (xiǎng): to want学 (xué): to learn中文 (zhōngwén): Chinese language可以 (kěyǐ): can参加 (cānjiā): to participate in我的 (wǒ de): my汉语 (hànyǔ): Chinese language课 (kè): class
Jīntiān de tiānqì hěn zāogāo, xiàyǔ le.
Today's weather is terrible, it's raining.
This sentence uses the 的 particle to link the noun 天气 to the adjective 糟糕. The 很 particle is used to modify the adjective, expressing a high degree of terribleness. The phrase 下雨了 is used to indicate that it started raining at some point during the day.
今天 (jīntiān): today的 (de): of天气 (tiānqì): weather很 (hěn): very糟糕 (zāogāo): terrible下雨 (xiàyǔ): raining了 (le): indicates change
wǒ qùnián zài dàxué xuéle zhōngwén.
Last year, I learned Chinese at university.
This sentence uses the structure '在 + location + 学 + subject' to indicate where an action took place. In this case, the action is 'learned Chinese', the location is 'university' and the time is 'last year'.
去年 (qùnián): last year大学 (dàxué): university学 (xué): to learn中文 (zhōngwén): Chinese language
tā gāngcái zài dǎ diànhuà.
He was just on the phone.
In this sentence, we see the verb 在 (zài) being used to mean 'to be on'. We also see the time phrase 刚才 (gāngcái) being used to indicate that the action happened just now. This sentence is an example of using time phrases and prepositions to describe ongoing actions in the past.
他 (tā): he刚才 (gāngcái): just now在 (zài): on打电话 (dǎ diànhuà): to be on the phone