[2025-11-01]reddit评论区：“中文没有语法”

HealthyThought1897
On Chinese Internet, lots of netizens think so. They may think that Chinese lacks inflections, and has a somewhat flexible word order, so it doesn't have a grammar. Someone even claims that Chinese is therefore a "primitive language". How do you guys think about it?
p.s. I've seen someone trying to prove this with "我吃饭了, 我吃了饭, 饭我吃了, 我饭吃了 have the same meaning". Wow.

在中文互联网，很多网友也是这么认为的。他们可能觉得中文没有词形变化，语序也比较灵活，所以就没有语法。甚至有人因此声称中文是“原始语言”。你们怎么看？
顺便说一下，我见过有人试着用“我吃饭了、我吃了饭、饭我吃了、我饭吃了，意思都一样”来证明这一点。哇哦。
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LataCogitandi
Lack of conjugation ≠ not having grammar lol

没有动词变位 ≠ 没有语法，哈哈

Wailaowai -> LataCogitandi
One of the many beauties of Chinese is precisely that - that we need no tedious faffing around with inflections to nonetheless express clearly.

中文的美妙之处之一正是这点，我们无需繁琐地进行词形变化，就能清晰地表达意思。

treskro
All languages have grammar.

所有语言都有语法。

Sebas94 -> treskro
Not only that, but some linguistics believe all languages share a universal grammar, which are the basic grammatical structures that all languages have in common.

不仅如此，一些语言学家认为，所有语言都共享一种“普遍语法”，即所有语言共同拥有的基本语法结构。

rdfporcazzo -> Sebas94
Wasn't that debunked by an Amazonian indigenous language?

这不是已经被亚马逊地区的一种土著语言推翻了吗？

DrAlphabets -> rdfporcazzo
Linguist here. Tldr Not really. But I'll try to quickly gloss over the main points.
Dan Everett is the man who wrote about the Pirãha language and people. To date no one has reproduced his work. He isn't a linguist by any stretch so his claims are dubious anyways. I imagine this is an issue for basically all disciplines, but the specific flavour of this that happens in linguistics is that people have a tendency to confuse a mastery of a language (in this case English, possibly Pirãha) with an understanding of language structure as a whole (linguistics), and near as I can tell that's what is happening here.
The specific claim that he attempts to debunk is that all languages have a feature called recursion. This is a feature predicted by universal grammar that we can embed phrases and clauses in other phrases and clauses ad infinitum. Everett claims that Pirãha lacks this feature and thus disproves universal grammar.
This is troubling for two main reasons:
It's not obvious to me that Pirãha does in fact lack this feature. The cherry picked examples that are often discussed seem to indicate a limited version of this claim but it is far from being a convincing smoking gun.
Suppose that Everett is correct and that Pirãha does in fact at least have some constraints on their ability to do recursion. Universal grammar is built with a number of on/off switches for various processes. So Everett's claim, rather than totally disproving UG, would simply modify one aspect of it.

作为一名语言学家，我总结一下：其实并非如此，但我尽量简要概述一下主要观点。
丹·埃弗雷特是那个写过关于皮拉罕语和皮拉罕族的那个人。迄今为止，没有人能够复现他的研究成果。而且他完全算不上是一名语言学家，所以他的结论本身就值得怀疑。我想，这种问题在几乎所有学科中都存在，但在语言学中，这一问题的特殊表现是：人们容易把对某种语言（比如英语，可能还有皮拉罕语）的精通与对语言结构整体的理解（即语言学）混为一谈，据我所知，这里就是这种情况。
埃弗雷特试图反驳的具体观点是：所有语言都具备递归这一特征。这是普遍语法理论所预言的特性，即我们可以无限地在短语和从句中嵌套更多短语和从句。埃弗雷特声称皮拉罕语缺乏这种特性，因此驳倒了普遍语法。
这让人担忧的主要有两点：
第一，我并不觉得皮拉罕语真的缺乏这种特性。那些经常被拿出来讨论的断章取义的例子，似乎只能说明他的说法在某种程度上成立，但还远远称不上有力证据。
第二，假设埃弗雷特是对的，皮拉罕语确实在递归能力上有一些限制。普遍语法本身就包含了许多可以开关的参数。所以埃弗雷特的说法，与其说是彻底推翻普遍语法，不如说是对其中某一方面的修正。

Nine99 -> DrAlphabets
He isn't a linguist by any stretch
Calling a professor of linguistics a linguist isn't really a stretch.

“他完全算不上是一名语言学家”
称一名语言学教授为语言学家其实并不过分。

DrAlphabets -> Nine99
Yes that was perhaps a bit hasty on my part.

是的，那可能是我有些仓促了。

Absolut_Unit
Chinese has grammar, it just lacks conjugation.
Also most native speakers suck at teaching their language, explaining concepts, or giving suggestions on how to learn their own language. I've lost count of the number of times a language exchange partner has asked for clarification on a piece of English grammar, and I'm just as lost when attempting to explain it. This applies equally the other way around.

中文是有语法的，只是没有动词变位而已。
而且大多数母语者其实不擅长教自己的语言，也不擅长解释语法概念，或者给出学习自己语言的建议。我都记不清有多少次语伴向我请教某个英语语法点了，而我在尝试解释的时候也同样一头雾水。反过来也是一样的道理。

HealthyThought1897 -> Absolut_Unit
“suck at teaching……” this just hit home bro

“不擅长教学…”这句话真是戳到我了，兄弟。

TheBB -> Absolut_Unit
it just lacks conjugation.
That misrepresents the truth a bit. Chinese is missing essentially all kinds of inflection: conjugation as well as declension.

“只是没有动词变位而已”
这有点歪曲事实了。中文基本上没有所有类型的词形变化：不仅没有动词变位，也没有名词变格。

Jearrow
Technically, every language has grammar with, however, very different degrees of rules. Many people saying that China has "no grammar" actually mean that because Chinese has no declination, no articles, SOV syntax, and no conjugation, which turn out to be the most common grammatical aspects of a language. Basically, characters like 了，会，不，没，们, etc are function-words, and that's why you don't need to learn 10 past tenses like in French, 10 articles like in german, irregular plural forms like in English and so on. This is the reason why most Chinese language learners perceive it as a "no-grammar" language, often implying it's a language with no complex grammatical rules.

从技术上讲，每种语言都有语法，不过规则的复杂程度非常不同。很多人说中文“没有语法”，实际上是指中文没有词形变化、没有冠词、采用主谓宾语序、也没有动词变位，这些恰好是许多语言中最常见的语法特征。基本上，像“了”、“会”、“不”、“没”、“们”等字都是功能词，这也是为什么你不需要像学法语那样学十种过去时态，不需要像学德语那样学十种冠词，也不需要像学英语那样掌握不规则复数形式。因此，大多数学习中文的人会把它看作一种“没有语法”的语言，通常也暗示它是一种没有复杂语法规则的语言。

lazier_garlic -> Jearrow
Of course it's also "best case scenario" standard Mandarin. Chinese isn't magically exempt from words getting run together and phonemes weakening until you get opaque fusional alternations. I just read an interesting paper on this regarding northern Mandarin dialects. In many cases the word that disappears leaves a trace in the tone, creating minimal pairs based on tone, but there were a few cases with phonetic changes instead. (Standard Beijing Mandarin like you hear on TV dramas had a very simple tone system by comparison.)
Even TV Mandarin sometimes has words blurring together or coloring the vowel in a leftwards direction. 我也去，跟我走。

当然，这也是“最理想情况”的标准普通话。中文并没有神奇地免除词语连读和音素弱化，最终产生难以辨认的融合变体。我最近刚读了一篇关于北方官话方言的有趣论文。在很多情况下，消失的词会在声调上留下痕迹，从而形成基于声调的最小对立对，但也有少数情况是发生了语音变化。（相比之下，影视剧里的标准北京话声调系统要简单得多。）
就连电视里的普通话，有时也会出现词语粘连，或者元音向左同化的情况。例如：“我也去，跟我走。”

alexmc1980 -> lazier_garlic
Absolutely! And there's a handful of established cases where a character was even assigned to the new collapsed version, thankfully with a nice obvious etymology to its shape. Such as
甭 for 不用

没错！而且已经有一些确立的例子，某个汉字被分配给新的合并形式，幸好它的字形有明显的词源。例如：“甭”就是“不用”。

DIYDylana -> alexmc1980
Omg theres a fused buyong? Its cute 🥹

天啊，竟然有融合的不用吗？好可爱

SamePut9922 -> DIYDylana
孬 also

还有“孬”。

DIYDylana -> SamePut9922
That one looks so aesthetically pleasing!

那个字看起来太有美感了！

PleaseGreaseTheL -> Jearrow
This is what I was taught by my native Chinese teacher when I took a beginner class from him, in fact. Literally in his book and class: "china essentially has no grammar, other than these couple of rules..."
It is not literally "no grammar at all" but to English native speakers, it feels like there is essentially no grammar, and some of us are taught that as beginners.

事实上，这正是我当初上初级中文课时，我的母语中文老师教我的内容。他的书和课堂上都说：“中文基本上没有语法，只有这几条规则…”
当然，这并不是说“完全没有语法”，但对以英语为母语的人来说，学中文时感觉基本上没有语法，我们有些初学者也确实被这样教导过。

justyoureverydayJoe -> PleaseGreaseTheL
Yeah and as a beginner, learning Chinese characters and tones already feels like an insurmountable task, so teachers saying no grammar does provide some solace

是啊，作为初学者，学习汉字和声调本来就已经感觉像是一项难以逾越的任务了，所以老师们说“没有语法”确实会让人感到些许安慰。

-Mandarin -> PleaseGreaseTheL
but to English native speakers, it feels like there is essentially no grammar
I wish this was the case. I'm a native English speaker and have been studying for over a year and a half, but the grammar is consistently the hardest thing about Mandarin. I can pronounce and memorise words pretty well, but my sentences often make no sense and I have to rephrase them. Building a sentence in Chinese is deceptively difficult.
I can still talk to Chinese people of course, I have 4 separate 1 hour conversations with 4 separate Chinese speakers every week, but the grammar of Mandarin is anything but easy.

“但对以英语为母语的人来说，学中文时感觉基本上没有语法”
我希望真的是这样。我是英语母语者，已经学习中文一年半多了，但语法一直是普通话中最难的部分。我发音和记单词还行，但我说出来的句子经常没有逻辑，不得不重新组织。用中文造句看似容易，其实非常难。
当然，我还是能和中国人交流，每周会和四位不同的中国人各聊一小时，但普通话的语法绝对谈不上简单。

kristinofcourse -> -Mandarin
Yeah word order for complex sentences absolutely has grammar rules!! All languages have grammar. If your sentence is just word soup, you will not be understood.

是的，复杂句子的词序绝对有语法规则！所有语言都有语法。如果你的句子只是词语的杂乱堆砌，别人是无法理解你的。

BigRedBike -> -Mandarin
The ordering of words is to learning-to-speak-Chinese people one of the biggest speaking coherently challenges they face.

对正在学习说中文的人来说，词语的排序是他们在连贯表达时面临的最大挑战之一。

lazier_garlic -> PleaseGreaseTheL
That only works for very simple sentences.
As soon as you want to use a dependent clause, the syntax changes entirely.
So not a very good method!
I know some Chinese are taught and believe the no grammar thing because they think Chinglish is a good way to communicate, but you can literally only communicate with a Chinese speaker using it which kind of proves the point. Both languages have grammar and since the languages aren't in the same areal zone you don't even get the convenient convergences you see between, for example, French and English, or Japanese and Chinese (purely referring to grammatical convergence here, not vocabulary, of which there is extensive borrowing, nor am I asserting a language family relationship).

那只适用于非常简单的句子。一旦你想用一个从句，语法结构就完全变了。所以这不是一个很好的方法！
我知道有些中国人被教导并相信“没有语法”这种说法，因为他们认为中式英语（Chinglish）是一种不错的交流方式，但实际上你只能用它和中国人交流，这本身就说明了问题。两种语言都有语法，而且由于这两种语言并不属于同一个语言区，所以你甚至享受不到像法语和英语、或日语和中文之间那种便利的趋同（这里纯粹指语法上的趋同，不包括词汇，虽然词汇借用很广泛，也不是在说它们属于同一语系）。

alexmc1980 -> lazier_garlic
Curious what you see as useful convergence between Chinese and Japanese though, as I tend to view them as opposite ends of a spectrum in terms of structure despite sharing a good chunk of vocab.

不过我很好奇，你认为中日两种语言之间有哪些有用的趋同之处？因为我一直觉得，尽管它们共享了大量词汇，但在结构上却处于光谱的两端。

PlayfulIndependence5 -> lazier_garlic
When it becomes complex, the order gets out of wack. It’s my biggest struggle in chinese.

一旦变得复杂，语序就会乱掉。这是我学中文时最大的难题。

LataCogitandi
As for the example you've given, it's precisely because of grammar that each have a slightly different nuanced meaning:
我吃饭了: I've eaten [thanks for asking]
我吃了饭: "I've eaten..." and then done something (it feels like an incomplete sentence)
饭我吃了: As for the meal, I've eaten it.
我饭吃了: I've eaten my meal (as opposed to, say, taken a bite out of someone else's meal)

至于你举的例子，正是因为语法的关系，每句话都有略微不同的细微含义：
我吃饭了：我已经吃过饭了（谢谢关心）。
我吃了饭：“我吃过饭了…”然后做某事（感觉像个不完整的句子）。
饭我吃了：那顿饭，我已经吃过了。
我饭吃了：我把我的饭吃了（而不是吃了别人的饭之类的）。

PaintedScottishWoods -> LataCogitandi
飯吃了我 😱😱😱

饭吃了我 😱😱😱

LataCogitandi -> PaintedScottishWoods
And that is why Chinese has grammar, because that means something completely different 😉😂

这就是为什么中文有语法，因为那完全是不同的意思 😉😂

Crazy_Revolution_276 -> PaintedScottishWoods
In Shandong dialects, this is completely normal 😏

在山东方言里，这句话很正常😏

Unusual_Toe_6471 -> LataCogitandi
In my opinion,
我吃飯了 I have eaten
我吃了飯 I ate, and...
飯我吃了 The meal, I ate
我飯吃了 For me personally, I have eaten.

在我的理解，
我吃飯了 ：I have eaten
我吃了飯 ：I ate, and...
飯我吃了 ：The meal, I ate
我飯吃了 ：For me personally, I have eaten.

sjdmgmc -> Key-Personality-9125
When what you want to express can be communicated correctly, that is the correct sentence.
Too many people need to hear this. Precisely language is about communication, therefore stuff like grammar, punctuations, and spellings are important.

当你想表达的内容能够被正确传达时，那就是正确的句子。
太多人需要明白这道理。语言的本质是交流，因此语法、标点和拼写这些东西很重要。

cringecaptainq
You know how for English, it's often cited that native speakers are sometimes not the best at explaining concepts regarding the grammar of their own language?
I think this is the equivalent with Chinese native speakers

你知道对于英语来说，人们常说母语者有时候并不擅长解释自己语言的语法概念吗？
我觉得这在中文母语者身上也是一样的。

Turkey-Scientist -> cringecaptainq
It’s just a human thing, universal to all languages

这只是人类的共性，所有语言中都是如此。

lazier_garlic -> Turkey-Scientist
If you speak Russian and you are trying to explain Russian grammar to a German speaker, I promise you that's going to be a lot easier than explaining your language to a speaker of a language that is both not related to yours and which doesn't share areal features.

如果你会说俄语，并且你正在尝试向一位德语使用者解释俄语语法，我保证这比向一个既与你语言不同源又无地域共性的人解释要轻松得多。

ParticularWin8949 -> Turkey-Scientist
I disagree. Most English speakers never made the effort of learning another language properly and therefore never drew the parallels that would have helped them analyze their own language.
And the fact that modern English in the last 30 years
, like Mandarin Chinese, has become a bare-boned,no-frills, practical,utilitarian language. Most European languages are heading in the same sad direction. Watch videos of English and French speakers in the 60s or even 80s on YouTube. The collapse in accuracy, form and range of vocabulary used is "époustouflant". German is the one of the few languages that has retained a certain elegance thanks to its strict rules.

我不同意。大多数说英语的人从未真正努力学习另一门语言，因此也就没有发现那些能帮助他们分析自身语言的相似之处。事实上，过去三十年里，现代英语就像普通话一样，变成了一种精简、无修饰、实用主义的语言。大多数欧洲语言也正在走向同样令人遗憾的方向。你可以在YouTube上看看六十年代甚至八十年代英语和法语使用者的视频。准确性、形式和词汇量的崩塌简直是“令人震惊”。德语是少数因为严格规则而保留了一定优雅度的语言之一。

AfroArabBliss
Idk I’m studying Chinese currently, and there’s quite a bit of 语法 that kicks my ass.

我现在正在学中文，有不少语法真的让我头疼。

RadioLiar
Chinese has very rigid word order, so it doesn't need the complex declension systems of, say, German or Turkish to indicate grammatical case. Moreover, it's an isolating language, so the functions filled by verb conjugations in Western languages are filled by individual particles in Chinese. On top of that, it has aspects instead of tenses, so people think it's simpler because they're not learning "this is how you make the past tense" for example, but there are still complex rules for talking about the equivalent frames of time

中文的词序非常固定，所以它不需要像德语或土耳其语那样复杂的词形变化来表示语法格。而且，中文是一种孤立语，所以在西方语言中由动词变位承担的功能，在中文中由单独的虚词来完成。除此之外，中文是通过“体”而不是“时态”来表达时间概念，所以人们觉得它更简单，因为他们不用去学“如何构成过去时”之类的内容，但其实在表达相应的时间框架时，仍然有复杂的规则。

shanghai-blonde
My coworkers say this all the time and it annoys the fuck out of me

我的同事们总是这么说“没有语法”，烦死我了。

HealthyThought1897 -> shanghai-blonde
i know you bro😭😭😭😭😭im so frustrated with those guys😭

我懂你的，兄弟😭😭😭😭😭，那些家伙真让人沮丧😭。

shanghai-blonde -> HealthyThought1897
I get that Chinese grammar is easier than European languages but when you’re coming from a European language it can be tricky to get a handle on because it’s totally different 😂
I didn’t study grammar for years because all my coworkers said there was no need. Once I started actually studying it my speaking ability shot up. Whoops 🤣🤣

我知道中文语法比欧洲语言简单，但如果你是从欧洲语言背景过来的，还是会觉得很难掌握，因为真的完全不一样😂。
我以前很多年都没学语法，因为同事们都说没必要。结果后来我开始认真学语法后，我的口语能力一下子就提升了。哎呦🤣🤣。

Procyon4
Objectively incorrect.

客观上是错误的。

Mukeli1584
Ah yes. The infamous Chinese Language Materials Industrial Complex (CLMIC) must be the reason why my textbooks have so many sections on non-existent grammar as well as why there are several textbooks focused on grammar only on my bookshelves. /s

啊，没错，那臭名昭著的中文教材产业复合体（CLMIC）一定就是导致我课本里有那么多根本不存在的语法，以及我书架上有好几本只讲语法的教材的原因了。/狗头

digbybare
This is why you should never take the word of native speakers as gospels. They're as likely to be right as they are to be massively wrong.

这就是为什么你绝不应该把母语者的话奉为真理。他们说得对的可能性和说得大错特错的可能性是一样的。

IEC21
According to my Chinese bf Chinese definitely has grammar.... otherwise I could just use all the words in any order like I want to.

据我中国男友说，中文肯定是有语法的… 不然我就可以随便把所有的词按任何顺序用了。

VillageHorse
好你
Doesn’t make sense right?

“好你”，是说不通的吧？

person2567
Literally the only people who have ever told me Chinese has no grammar are Chinese people. It's not a common held belief anywhere in the West that a language can have no grammar.

实际上，唯一告诉我中文没有语法的人都是中国人。在西方，几乎没人认为一种语言可以没有语法。

ilcorvoooo -> person2567
I only ever see it when people are comparing it to other languages, usually Japanese and Korean. And never by anyone who has actually studied both Chinese and the comparative language(s) to some degree of fluency

我只在别人把它和其他语言（通常是日语和韩语）作比较时才会看到这种说法。而且我从来没有见过真正学过中文和对比语言（至少有一定流利程度）的人这么说。

lazier_garlic
Re: discourse about Chinese language more broadly, sadly, about a century ago a lot of horseshit was spread about Chinese by Western linguists who thought inflectional endings = grammar. Hungarian = most grammar. Chinese = least grammar. This is idiotic and nonsensical and linguists haven't thought this way for a very long time.
It's a point of view that's oddly enough pretty unfair to the English language, but in the early 20th century the real center of gravity of linguistics was continental Europe and the study of ancient languages such as Sanskrit, Homeric Greek, and Latin, and contemporary languages such as Germanic languages, Slavic languages, and Caucasian languages. Thankfully, in the last century there has been a lot more energy to research non Indo European languages (including endangered minority languages) than there was in the century before that and that work really transformed the way linguists think about grammar.
The advances in our study of ancient languages (we know far more about Hittite and Tocharian now on the Indo European side, and Oracle Bone scrlpt and Old Chinese on the Sino-Tibetan side, just for starters) have also shown that a lot of the old assumptions about language typology were false as well. Grammar changes in the same language over time. It's always in a state of being reanalyzed and retrofitted. Chinese is not exempt from this, with verbs getting reanalyzed as particles over time. Due to the very long literary history of Chinese it's possible to track these grammatical changes.

关于更广泛的中文讨论，可惜的是，大约一个世纪前，西方语言学家对中文传播了很多胡说八道，他们认为有词尾变化才算有语法。匈牙利语=语法最多，中文=语法最少。这种观点既愚蠢又荒谬，实际上语言学家早就不这么看了。
这种观点其实对英语也很不公平，但在20世纪初，语言学研究的真正重心在欧洲大陆，关注的主要是古代语言，例如梵语、荷马时期的希腊语和拉丁语，还有当时的德语、斯拉夫语和高加索地区的语言。幸运的是，在上个世纪，非印欧语言（包括濒危的少数民族语言）受到了更多关注和研究，这极大改变了语言学家对语法的看法。
我们对古代语言的研究也有了很大进步（在印欧语系中我们现在对赫梯语和吐火罗语了解得多了，在汉藏语系中甲骨文和上古汉语的研究也有了很大发展，仅举几例），这些进展也证明了许多关于语言类型学的旧假设是错误的。同一语言的语法会随时间发生变化，它始终处于重新解析和调整的状态。中文也不例外，比如动词随着时间推移被重新解析成了虚词。由于中文有非常悠久的文学历史，我们可以追踪这些语法变化。

ParticularWin8949 -> lazier_garlic
Hungarian/finnish = most grammar, is not an idiotic statement
There's a reason why Greek, Latin and German became the languages of philosophy. And not English. Grammatical sophistication, especially declension, promotes reflection and attention to details. No wonder also that Hungarians children are the best at mathematics in the world.

匈牙利语/芬兰语语法最多，这并不是无稽之谈。
希腊语、拉丁语和德语成为哲学语言而不是英语，是有原因的。语法的复杂性，尤其是词形变化，有助于促进思考和对细节的关注。难怪匈牙利的孩子们是世界上数学最好的。

Prowlbeast
My friends also say this; in a way it can be true; you can generally swap some words with the meaning staying the same, but obviously there are some hard rules too. I find it similar to english in some way. English has some set in stone grammar but also some more forgiving word orders. Like “Your friend is who” is clunky but just as legible as”Who is your friend”

我的朋友们也这么说；在某种程度上这是真的；你通常可以替换一些词，意思还是一样的，但显然也有一些严格的规则。我觉得这和英语有点像。英语有一些固定不变的语法规则，但在词序上也比较灵活。比如，“Your friend is who”虽然别扭，但和“Who is your friend”一样能看懂。

lazier_garlic -> Prowlbeast
English has more flexibilities in word order than people give it credit for. One thing to note is that spoken vernacular English can be quite different from "acceptable" formal written English.

英语在词序上的灵活性比人们通常认为的要大。需要注意的一点是，口语化的英语和“规范的”正式书面英语可能有很大不同。

BigRedBike -> Prowlbeast
So, what you're saying is that Chinese has no grammar because "one might not infrequently exchange a portion of the wording and have the significance of the statement remain consistent."

所以，你的意思是中文没有语法，因为“人们可能经常更换部分用词，而句子的意思依然不变。”

Last_Swordfish9135
Every language has grammar, and you can construct grammatically incorrect Chinese sentences. But Chinese grammar is still much simpler than that of many other languages, especially Japanese and Korean (I don't know much about Korean grammar, but I've heard it's more similar to Japanese, and Japanese grammar is a massive pain.)

每种语言都有语法，你也可以造出语法错误的中文句子。但中文的语法确实比很多其他语言简单得多，尤其是相比日语和韩语（我对韩语语法了解不多，但听说它和日语更相似，而日语语法非常让人头疼）。

lameparadox -> Last_Swordfish9135
Vietnamese and Chinese have analytic grammatical patterns. It seems simpler but it’s really about word order. While other languages rely less on word order and more on other features. Japanese is a mix of analytic and synthetic - some inflections on verbs with mostly individual nouns, not that complex either. Try polysynthetic languages like Mohawk or Navajo if you want actual complexity - entire sentences in one word, all morphemes bound together.

越南语和中文有分析型的语法结构。看起来更简单，但其实主要是依靠词序。而其他一些语言则不太依赖词序，更多依靠其他特征。日语是分析型和综合型的混合，动词有一些词形变化，名词大多是独立的，也不是很复杂。如果你想要真正复杂的语言，可以试试多综合语，比如莫霍克语或纳瓦霍语，一句完整的话可以浓缩成一个词，所有语素都结合在一起。

lazier_garlic -> Last_Swordfish9135
Japanese grammar in my experience is really easy to learn. The most difficult thing is probably counters (especially since the native counting system emerges there--surprise!).
Chinese grammar is typologically more similar to English so that part goes more quickly and doesn't require brain power, but one you get in the weeds it's more difficult. I think it's made even more difficult for learners by very ineffective teaching methods being utilized.
Japanese grammar has an underlying systemic logic that allows to scale for increasingly complicated thoughts. Chinese grammar follows a very intuitive idea of "first this, then this". The problem for an English speaking learner is that English requires particles like "to" to string these chains of cause and effect together. Then to make everything more maddening for the learner, Chinese is rife with Old Chinese words and expressions, some fossilized and some still kind of productive? And the translation by gloss method for special grammatical constructions really doesn't work. Take 为 for example. Really frequent word! Find an account of its use that doesn't give one a headache.

根据我的经验，日语语法真的很容易学。最难的部分大概是各种计数词（尤其是日语本土的计数系统会突然冒出来——惊喜！）。
中文语法在类型上和英语更相似，所以学起来会快一些，也不太费脑子，但一旦深入细节就变得更难了。我觉得学习中文更难的一个原因是，目前采用的教学方法非常低效。
日语语法有一种内在的系统逻辑，可以让你表达越来越复杂的想法。中文语法则遵循一种非常直观的“先这样，然后那样”的思路。对于以英语为母语的学习者来说，问题在于英语需要用“to”这样的介词把因果链条串起来。而让学习者更头疼的是，中文里充满了古汉语词汇和表达，有些已经固定化了，有些还有一定的生命力？而且，对于一些特殊的语法结构，靠逐字翻译的方法根本行不通。比如“为”这个字，非常常见！你去找找看，有没有讲它的用法而不让人头疼的说明。

Key-Personality-9125 -> lazier_garlic
It's not just loanwords. If you've studied Japanese, you'll know that the writing and pronunciation of Japanese hiragana and katakana are both derived from Chinese.
For exampleあいうえお Actually, it is the rhyme.かさたな These are actually initials.

不仅仅是外来词。如果你学过日语，你就会知道日语的平假名和片假名的书写和发音都源自中文。
比如“あいうえお”，其实就是韵母。“かさたな”这些其实是声母。

bobthemanhimself
The greek grammatical tradition was largely built around defining the patterns of inflection, which chinese doesn't have, so the chinese grammatical tradition was based around defining "full" and "empty" words (basically content and function words) so saying a language doesn't have grammar because it lacks inflection is very much a european way of thinking.

希腊的语法传统主要是围绕词形变化的模式来定义的，而中文没有词形变化，所以中文的语法传统是以划分“实词”和“虚词”（基本上就是内容词和功能词）为基础的。因此，仅仅因为一种语言缺乏词形变化就说它没有语法，这其实是一种非常欧洲中心主义的思维方式。

DTux5249
Conjugation is not grammar. You can't forget the 'syntax' part of morphosyntax.

动词变位不是语法。你不能忘了形态句法中的“句法”部分。

Protheu5
Chinese grammar textbooks are basically just as big as other languages grammar textbooks.

中文语法教材基本上和其他语言的语法教材一样厚。

Jantias
Grammar is divided in:
- Phonetics
- Morphology
- Syntax
Semantics would the fourth leg of a language. As far as I know (I've only studied chinese for a year and a half), chinese doesn't have morphology. But it sure has sintactic rules!

语法分为：
- 语音学
- 形态学
- 句法学
语义学可以算作语言的第四个支柱。据我所知（我只学了一年半的中文），中文没有形态学。但它确实有句法规则！

NMOURD
There is grammar, but if your Chinese is fluent enough you dont have to follow it strictly. If two people are both fluent they can understand each other.

确实有语法规则，但如果你的中文足够流利，就不必严格遵循。如果两个人都很流利，他们就能互相理解。

Helpful-Reputation-5 -> NMOURD
Fluent speakers still follow strict grammatical rules, they just may not be the same rules you learn in a classroom as an L2 speaker.

流利的母语者依然遵循严格的语法规则，只是这些规则可能和你作为二语学习者在课堂上学到的不一样。

dojibear
I've heard 2 native Chinese people -- educated ones -- say that Chinese doesn't have grammar. The whole "grammar" thing was a European creation that matches European languages but not Chinese.

我听两个受过教育的中国母语者说过，中文是没有语法的。“语法”这个概念是欧洲人创造的，适用于欧洲语言，但不适用于中文。

HealthyThought1897 -> dojibear
China's compulsory education contains little knowledge about Chinese grammar. Moreover, students are strongly influenced by English grammar they were planted. So even educated ones have wrong impressions of Chinese grammar :p

中国的义务教育几乎不教授中文语法知识。此外，学生们还深受他们被灌输的英语语法影响。所以即使是受过良好教育的人，对中文语法的理解也常常是错误的 :p

Otherwise-Exit-2888
The claim that “Chinese has no grammar” is a common misconception.
First, the existence of grammar is not dependent on inflectional morphology. In linguistics, grammar refers to the system of rules that governs how a language organizes and conveys meaning. While Chinese lacks the inflectional endings seen in English or French, it relies heavily on word order, function words, and context to perform grammatical functions. For example, “我吃了饭 (wǒ chī le fàn)” and “饭我吃了 (fàn wǒ chī le)” both involve the act of eating, but the former is a neutral statement while the latter carries emphasis or focus on “饭”.
Second, word order is crucial in Chinese. As an analytic or isolating language, Chinese encodes grammatical relationships primarily through fixed word order and particles. If you change the order carelessly, the sentence often becomes ungrammatical or changes meaning entirely. Compare “我吃了饭 (I ate the meal)” with “饭吃了我 (The meal ate me)”. The words are the same, but the syntax and semantics differ completely.
Third, labeling Chinese as a “primitive language” is not linguistically valid. There is no such thing as a primitive versus advanced language; there are only different typological systems. Chinese has a long written tradition, a highly systematic grammar, and the capacity to express abstract and complex ideas with precision.
Finally, the claim that “我吃饭了, 我吃了饭, 饭我吃了, 我饭吃了 all mean the same thing” is misleading. While they may share a general semantic domain, each structure differs in terms of focus, pragmatic function, and contextual appropriateness. These distinctions highlight the subtlety and richness of Chinese grammar rather than its absence.
Chinese does not lack grammar; it simply operates with a grammatical system that differs from inflectional languages.

“中文没有语法”这种说法是一种常见的误解。
首先，语法的存在并不取决于词形变化。在语言学中，语法指的是支配一种语言如何组织和传递意义的规则体系。虽然中文没有像英语或法语那样的词尾变化，但它在语法功能上极度依赖词序、虚词和语境。例如，“我吃了饭”和“饭我吃了”都涉及吃饭这个动作，但前者是中性的陈述，后者则强调或突出“饭”。
其次，词序在中文中至关重要。作为一种分析型或孤立型语言，中文主要通过固定的词序和助词来表达语法关系。如果随意改变词序，句子往往会变得不合语法，或者意思完全改变。比如，“我吃了饭”与“饭吃了我”用的词相同，但句法和语义却完全不同。
第三，把中文称为“原始语言”在语言学上是没有依据的。并不存在所谓“原始”与“高级”的语言，只有不同的类型系统。中文有悠久的书写传统、极其系统的语法，并能精准地表达抽象和复杂的思想。
最后，说“我吃饭了、我吃了饭、饭我吃了、我饭吃了”意思都一样，是误导性的。虽然它们在大致语义范围内相似，但每种结构在焦点、语用功能和语境适用性上都有区别。这些差异正好体现了中文语法的精妙和丰富，而不是语法缺失。
中文并不是没有语法；它只是拥有一种与屈折型语言不同的语法体系。

VulpesSapiens
To be fair, Chinese has (almost) no morphology; but it does have grammar.

公平地说，中文（几乎）没有形态变化；但它确实有语法。

Cool_Swing_9044
Of course there is some grammar but compared to most languages it's incomparable.

当然有一些语法，但完全无法和大多数语言相比。

AD7GD
Chinese doesn't have a lot of rules that you can put together in a general way to make (or understand) sentences. It does have some rules like that, and you encounter those rules early in your study, but eventually "grammar" becomes a huge list of specific usage patterns. You can see this in HSK, if you open early HSK book you get big, general rules like where to put "time" in a sentence. If you open later HSK books you get things like "how to use this specific word or expression".

中文没有很多可以通用的规则来造句或理解句子。确实有一些这样的规则，而且你在学习初期就会遇到这些规则，但最终“语法”会变成一大堆具体的用法模式。如果你看HSK教材就能发现这一点，打开初级HSK教材，你会看到一些大而通用的规则，比如“时间”在句子中的位置。可如果你看高级HSK教材，就会遇到诸如“如何使用某个具体词或表达”的内容。

Far_Government_9782
I'm studying Latin at the same time as Mandarin.
Yes, with Mandarin it's nice not to have pages of conjugations and declensions to memorize.
On the other hand, with Latin, to say a sentence you just sort of start in their and add the other words as you think of them.
With Mandarin, I have to kind of assemble the whole sentence in my head before I even start to speak, because if I get words in the wrong order it will sound odd or incomprehensible... it makes me a bit hesitant about speaking.

我现在同时在学习拉丁语和中文。
没错，学中文的好处就是不用背一大堆动词变位和词形变化。
但另一方面，说拉丁语的时候，你可以一边开口一边把想说的词加进去。
而在说中文时，我必须在脑子里先把整个句子组织好才能开口，因为如果词序搞错了，听起来会很奇怪甚至让人听不懂…这让我在开口说中文的时候有点犹豫。

mklinger23
Flexibility of word order and lack of conjugation doesn't mean lack of grammar. And for your example, you can do the same in English. "I ate food.", "food, I ate it", "eat food, I did". It sounds a little unnatural, but so do your examples in Chinese. Calling Chinese primitive is extremely ignorant. Chinese is overall more logical than English. Most words are made of other words that already exist. That exists in English, but it's much more common in Chinese.

词序的灵活和没有词形变化并不代表没有语法。就拿你举的例子来说，英语里也可以这样。"I ate food."（我吃了饭）、"food, I ate it"（饭，我吃了）、"eat food, I did"（吃饭，我做了）。虽然听起来有点不自然，但你举的中文例子也一样不自然。说中文原始，是非常无知的。整体上，中文比英语更有逻辑。大多数词汇都是由已经存在的其他词组成的。这在英语里也有，但在中文里更常见。

pikleboiy
All languages have grammar; inflections and syntax are not the only aspects of grammar. There are, for example, classifiers and counters in Chinese.

所有语言都有语法；词形变化和句法并不是语法的唯一方面。例如，中文有量词和计数词。

ChocolateAxis
People who obviously aren't that interested in language would not know better.

那些对语言显然不太感兴趣的人，是不会更深入了解的。

perksofbeingcrafty
If you only know Chinese, and then you try to learn a Germanic or Romance language with a textbook, then yeah it will absolutely seem like Chinese has no grammar. Also, Chinese schools don’t really teach grammar the way they do in English schools, because it’s much harder to screw it up in writing if you’re a native speaker.

如果你只会中文，然后试着用课本学习一门日耳曼语或罗曼语，那么你绝对会觉得中文没有语法。而且，中国学校确实不像英语学校那样教语法，因为如果你是母语者，在写作时很难把语法搞错。

karlinhosmg
Obviously it has grammar, but as a spanish speaker I can tell that while spanish grammar is usually unambiguous, chinese grammar is extremely dependent on the context.
Whenever a chinese friend sends me a message I always have to use deepl, Google translate and Pleco to tell the real meaning.
But probably a chinese person thinks the same about spanish. Who knows.

中文显然是有语法的，但作为一名西班牙语使用者，我可以说，西班牙语的语法通常是很明确的，而中文的语法极其依赖语境。每当我的中国朋友给我发消息时，我总是需要用DeepL、谷歌翻译和Pleco来判断真正的意思。但也许中国人对西班牙语也有同样的感觉，谁知道呢。

BobbieMaccc
Chinese is super easy in terms of grammar, a few sentence constructions and orders to get right is about it.. it's a language used by over 1 billion people across such huge geographic area, being relatively simple probably a benefit to cultural longevity

中文的语法非常简单，只需要掌握几种句子结构和顺序就差不多了。这是一种有十多亿人在如此广阔的地域使用的语言，相对简单也许正是其文化长久延续的一个优势。

divinelyshpongled
Of course it has grammar.. it’s just more flexible than English when it comes to the daily spoken form.

当然有语法… 只是日常口语中比英语更灵活而已。

adreamy0
I somewhat agree, in certain respects, with the claim that “Chinese has no grammar”.
Regarding word order inversions and the omission or dropping of grammatical elements, such phenomena are notably observable in Korean and Japanese as well.
In fact, I am somewhat skeptical of the term “basic word order”, which I suspect may reflect a Western-language-oriented perspective.
Of course, in Korean, if we look at usage frequency, S+O+V sentences are common.
However, in actual everyday communication, this order is often disrupted, and sometimes only one of these elements is even used.
Although sentences of this kind also exist in Indo-European languages, the difference in actual usage frequency is quite noticeable.
As those familiar with Korean may know, sentences consisting solely of S, O, or V are common.
Furthermore, word order is not rigidly fixed and often shifts depending on context and nuance; such changes can slightly alter emphasis or nuance, and in some cases, even produce a meaning that is almost opposite.
Consequently, the extent of omission, dropping, and flexibility in word order makes it difficult to speak of a “basic word order” or “basic grammatical elements”.
From the perspective of most Western languages, one might say that it is difficult to apply the same grammatical concepts in a straightforward manner.
(My position is that, with respect to word order and grammatical elements, the concept of “grammar” tends to reflect a perspective centered on most Western languages.)
That said, as I mentioned earlier, if we consider usage frequency alone, SOV sentences are still common in Korean, so one could reasonably argue that they represent the “basic word order”.

在某种程度上，我多少会同意“中文没有语法”这一说法。
关于语序倒置以及语法成分的省略或删减，这些现象在韩语和日语中也非常明显。
实际上，我对“基本语序”这个术语持有一定的怀疑，我怀疑它可能反映了一种以西方语言为中心的观点。
当然，在韩语中，如果从使用频率来看，主+宾+谓（S+O+V）的句子很常见。
然而，在日常实际交流中，这种顺序经常会被打乱，有时甚至只会用到其中的一个成分。
虽然这类句子在印欧语系的语言中也存在，但实际使用频率上的差异还是很明显的。
熟悉韩语的人都知道，仅由主语、宾语或谓语单独构成的句子很常见。
此外，词序并不是严格固定的，经常会根据语境和语气发生变化；这种变化可以稍微改变句子的强调或语气，有时甚至会产生几乎相反的意思。
因此，成分省略、删减和语序灵活性的程度，使得很难去谈论所谓的“基本语序”或“基本语法成分”。
从大多数西方语言的角度来看，可以说很难直接套用相同的语法概念。
（我的立场是，就语序和语法成分而言，“语法”这个概念往往反映的是以多数西方语言为中心的视角。）
不过，正如我前面提到的，如果仅从使用频率来看，SOV句型在韩语中仍然很常见，因此也可以说它们代表了“基本语序”。

adreamy0 -> adreamy0
Based on a brief search, it seems that Korean and Japanese are languages with a somewhat extreme tendency for grammatical elements to be omitted or dropped, and they are less strictly bound by word order.
If you could post this topic in another language community, I'd like to discuss and compare it with various language families.

根据简单搜索，韩语和日语似乎是语法成分经常被省略或删减的语言，而且它们对词序的要求也没有那么严格。如果你能把这个话题发到其他语言社区，我很想和大家一起讨论、比较不同的语系。

Ladder-Bhe
我吃饭了 书面形式
我吃了饭 书面形式
我饭吃了，饭我吃了， oral expression,Common expressions in Minnan dialect and Cantonese
China has a long history, and different local dialects are used alternately, so there are many expressions in grammar. There is a consensus that the order of Chinese characters does not affect reading (most of the time).

我吃饭了（书面形式）
我吃了饭（书面形式）
我饭吃了，饭我吃了。（口语表达，闽南语和粤语中的常见表达方式）
中国历史悠久，各地方言交替使用，因此语法表达方式多种多样。大家普遍认为汉字的顺序大多数情况下并不影响阅读。

Strict-Amphibian9732
Is 我爱你 equal to 你爱我？Something as simple as word order is part of grammar

“我爱你”等于“你爱我”吗？像词序这样简单的东西也是语法的一部分。

pluckylarva
我吃饭了 (neutral statement): "I ate the meal." (Neutral tone)
我吃了饭 (often part of a sequence): "I had the meal, and then..." (Implies a sequence of events)
饭我吃了 (topicalized, emphasizing the meal): "The meal? I ate it." 
我饭吃了 (awkward in Chinese): This one is ungrammatical. 

我吃饭了（中性陈述）：“我吃了那顿饭”（中性语气）
我吃了饭（常用于动作序列的一部分）：“我吃了饭，然后...”（暗示后续动作）
饭我吃了（突出强调“饭”）：“那顿饭？我吃了”（强调饭）
我饭吃了（中文里很别扭）：这个表达不符合语法。

HealthyThought1897 -> pluckylarva
Well, 我饭吃了 can be realized as “Me? the meal is eaten (by me)”, “Moi, le repas a été pris”. A topicalized sentence similar to 饭我吃了, but here 我 is the topic emphasized.

“我饭吃了”可以理解为“我？饭已经被我吃了”，“Moi, le repas a été pris”。这是一个类似于“饭我吃了”的话题句，不过这里强调的是“我”这个话题。

ennamemori
I find that beyond the basics, Chinese grammar is quite difficult because of its flexibility and high context. Unlike other languages with more upfront grammar requirements, which need a lot of memorisation, once you get to a higher level in Chinese and people play round with it then things get real.

我发现，除了基础部分外，中文语法其实相当难，因为它非常灵活且高度依赖语境。不像其他语言有很多明确的语法要求，需要大量记忆，一旦你的中文水平提高，人们开始灵活运用语法，事情就变得真正复杂了。

HarambeTenSei
饭吃我了 having a different meaning disproves his statement 

“饭吃我了”有不同的含义，这反驳了他的说法。

Gaeilgeoir_66
The suggestion is based on the way how people equate grammar with morphology. Chinese indeed has next to no morphology, but it has all kinds of grammatical rules about word order, tone sandhi and so on.

这个说法是基于人们把语法等同于形态学的观点。中文确实几乎没有形态变化，但它有各种关于词序、变调等方面的语法规则。

lozztt
It is kind of poetic. You can write a sentence with four characters and it can mean anything. I love the enigmatic aspect of it.

中文有点像诗歌。你可以用四个字写一句话，而且有丰富的含义。我喜欢这种神秘感。

Professional-Net1940
You can't say 吃我了饭, right??

你不能说“吃我了饭”吧？？

AdOnly7797
Don't forget 我吃了饭了, the 了……了 structure indicating past perfect tense. 哈哈哈

别忘了“我吃了饭了”，这个“了…了”的结构表示过去完成时态。哈哈哈