Level 2 · Lesson 8

我买东西
I go shopping

我去商店买东西。我买水果和面包。

买 and its objects, 东西 as the all-purpose 'things', and two verb phrases stacked in the order the events happen.

听 · Listen

对话
 李明 —  安娜，你去哪儿？ 
Anna, where are you going?  
 安娜 —  我去商店买东西。 
I'm going to the shop to buy some things.  
 李明 —  你买什么东西？ 
What are you buying?  
 安娜 —  我买水果和面包。 
I'm buying fruit and bread.  
 李明 —  买什么水果？ 
What fruit?  
 安娜 —  买苹果。你吃苹果吗？ 
Apples. Do you eat apples?  
 李明 —  我吃苹果，也喝果汁。 
I eat apples, and I drink juice too.  
 安娜 —  好，我买苹果，也买果汁。 
Fine — I'll buy apples, and juice as well.  

讲解 · Explanation

我去商店买东西。

Here are two whole verb phrases in one sentence: 去商店 'go to the shop' and 买东西 'buy things'. Chinese simply puts them one after the other, with no word for 'to' or 'in order to' between them — and the order on the page is the order in time. First you go, then you buy. Turn them round and you change the meaning, not just the style: 我买东西去商店 is not a sentence anyone would say.

我买东西。我买水果。

东西 is your all-purpose object when you do not want to name what you are buying — 我买东西 is exactly English 'I'm shopping'. The two characters are 东 'east' and 西 'west', but in this word the second one goes light and toneless: dōngxi, never dōngxī. If you do name the goods, they go in the same slot: 买水果, 买面包, 买苹果.

水果、苹果、面包

果 guǒ is 'fruit', so 水果 is the whole family and 苹果 is one member of it — an apple is a 水果, bread is not. 面包 is 面 'flour' plus 包 'wrap, bun'. One of the three puts a third tone straight after another third tone: 水果 shuǐguǒ. Say the whole sentence 我买水果 and you have four third tones in a row — wǒ mǎi shuǐguǒ. We always write every one of them as it really is, even though in speech all but the last come out closer to a rising tone.

生词 · Vocabulary

词	Meaning	注 · Note
买	to buy
东西	things, stuff	second syllable neutral: dōngxi
水果	fruit
苹果	apple	a kind of 水果
面包	bread

练习 · Practice

排一排。 Arrange the words: 'I go to the shop to buy things.'

去商店，买水果 Which sentence means 'I go to the shop to buy fruit'?

苹果、面包、水 Which one is a 水果 (fruit)?

我去商店______东西。 I go to the shop to buy things.

买、东西、水果、苹果、面包 Match each word to its meaning.

用一用 · Use it

我去商店买东西。我买……和……。

Say your shopping trip aloud as one sentence with two verbs in it: 我去商店买东西。 Then name three things you would actually buy, joining two of them with 和: 我买水果和面包。 Finish by asking a friend 你买什么东西？ and answering yourself.