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Optative mood and optative verbs (‘会’, ‘能’ and ‘可以’) in Chinese

 

In this post, we are going to learn what is the optative mood of the speaker and how to express it using optative verbs in Chinese.

 

When someone expresses a skill, probability or disposition for something we say that the speaker is in optative mood. Optative verbs are then those words that help the speaker to express this mood.

 

The most commonly used optative verbs are ‘会’, ‘能’ and ‘可以’ and they all share three main similarities:

 

  1. They express ability, possibility and willingness,
  2. They always should be placed before the verb in the sentence and
  3. They can be replaced by ‘要’ in certain situations.

 

In spite of the above, the speaker should be careful when choosing the right optative verb. These verbs are also related with the process required to develop a skill. For example, if the speaker wants to emphasize that certain ability can only by acquired through learning, then ‘会’ should be used, like in我会说汉语 (I can speak Chinese). Otherwise, ‘能’ and ‘可以’ are the optative verbs of choice to express general skills such as我能/可以介绍我的学校 (I can introduce my school).

 

Another difference between these words is that only ‘能’ and ‘可以’ can be used to give permission. For instance, 你能/可以进来 (You can come in).

 

As a last point, we would like to remind to the Mandarin Chinese students that ‘不能’ is the negative form for both optative verbs ‘能’ and ‘可以’. However, only ‘不可以’ is used for prohibition. For example:

 

A 我能/可以进来吗? (Can I come in?)

B 你不能进来。 (You cannot come in. – Negative answer)

  • 不可以吸烟。 (Do not smoke.)

 

Today we have learned the different uses of some optative verbs that can help someone to express the optative mood. If you want to know more about them, please, come along to one of our Mandarin lessons in London at first4mandarin.

 

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