Lesson 9: Plurals

Do you want to hear some great news?  Chinese has no distinction for plurals!!!  That means that whether a word is singular (dog) or plural (dogs) makes no difference!  For instance:

狗 - (gou3) dog

is the same thing as

狗 - (gou3) dogs

This is what I mean when I say that Chinese grammar is really not that bad!  How wonderful is that?

So how do you tell whether you're talking about only one dog or a group of dogs?  That's when your pronouns come in real handy.  (Check out this page to refresh your pronouns)  

Assuming I'm still talking about dogs, if I say: 

它叫小狗 - (ta1 jiao4 xiao3 gou3) His name is Small Dog.

am I referring to one or many dogs?  How about here:

它们是我的 - (ta1 men2 shi4 wo3 de5) They are mine.

It's really not that difficult after all!  You can now shove that burden off.  Woohoo!