Lesson 7: Expressing Posession in Mandarin (Adult)

To show possession in English, we often use have/has or there is/ there are something.... 

In Mandarin, have/has is translated as 有 yǒu

For example:
I have younger brother
我有弟弟                  Wǒ  yǒu dì di

However, in English we can also use possessive adjective (such as, my, your, her, etc).

In Chinese, the character that shows possession is 的 (de)

The owner + 的 de + the possession
He has older sister, we say:
他有姐姐
tā yǒu jiě jie

or if we use possessive adjective, we can  also say:
His older sister
他的姐姐

tā de jiě jie

Example in sentence:
I have older brother
我有哥哥
Wǒ yǒ gē ge

Mr. Li is my older brother
李先生是我的哥哥

Lí xián sheng shì wǒ de gē ge

The negative form of have and has can be don't have or have not got / has not got. In Chinese, it is "没有" méi yǒu.

Furthermore, in English we knows about possessive pronouns (such as: mine, hers, theirs, yours, etc)

Look at how we do this in Chinese:

1.  I have an elder brother

我有一个哥哥

2.  That is my elder brother

那是我的哥哥

3. This is his elder brother，That is mine.

这是他的哥哥， 那是我的
(We do not have to mention "My elder brother" anymore, because, the first part of the sentence we have already introduced someone else's elder brother, so we assume that everyone knows that when I say MINE, in this context I am talking about "MY Elder Brother"

Another example:
That house is belong to Mr. Li
那个屋子是李先生的

which means
That's house is Mr Li's house
那个屋子是理想生的屋子

In order for you to be able to form more sentences to show your possession, first you need to know the Mandarin for things that you own, for example car, house, handphone and more.

Here are a few things that you might own, please translate it to Mandarin (feel free to add more):
1. House
2. Car
3. Pen
4. Dog
5. Cat
6. Handphone
7. Laptop
8. Children
9. Daughter
10. Son


Now you can try to translate the following simple sentences:
1. Ms Linda has an older sister
2. Her sister is Casandra
3. My dog is Blacky
4. Her house is big
5. Our father is Mr Chen
6. Their mother is Mrs Li
7. They have 2 dogs
8. That kid do not have a grandfather

Have a good day,
Linda Tan