Adjectives in Chinese (形容词 Xíngróngcí) are somewhat different from those in English in that they can be used as verbs (for example 天黑了 "The sky has darkened") and thus linguists sometimes prefer to use the terms static or stative verb to describe them. In most dictionaries 形容词 (often abbreviated 形) is used to identify this part of speech. Jump to: navigation, search An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually making its meaning more specific. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Jump to: navigation, search A verb is a part of speech that usually denotes action (bring, read), occurrence (decompose, glitter), or a state of being (exist, stand). Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. ... The following is a list of linguists, those who study linguistics. ... A stative verb is one which asserts that one of its arguments has a particular property (possibly in relation to its other arguments). ... For other uses of dictionary, see dictionary (disambiguation). ...

Before nouns

When describing a noun with an adjective composed of multiple characters, 的 is used between the adjective and noun (for example 高兴的孩子 "happy child"). It is not used with single-character adjectives (新车 "new car"). Some examples: A noun, or noun substantive, is a word or phrase that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality. ...

• 黑天 - "dark sky"
• 坏人 - "bad person"
• 奇怪的人 - "strange person"
• 可爱的熊猫 - "cute panda"

After nouns

First pattern

When describing a subject with most adjectives in Chinese the verb "to be" is not required - in fact its use is grammatically incorrect (她漂亮 not 她是漂亮). These adjectives follow the simple pattern Noun + Adjective. In most cases an extra word (such as 很, 好, 真, 非常) can be inserted between the noun and adjective to specify the adjective's intensity. For some speakers this is grammatically necessary. For example, the following express increasing intensities of the statement "she is beautiful": The subject of a sentence is one of the two main parts of a sentence, the other being the predicate. ...

• 她漂亮
• 她很漂亮
• 她好漂亮
• 她真漂亮
• 她非常漂亮

Another pattern exists which expresses an intensity stronger than any of the above: Noun + Adjective + 极了.

• 她漂亮极了

Second pattern

Most adjectives fit the above pattern, but some do not. They are often things that describe mutually exclusive states of being, such as gender or color. These adjectives follow the pattern Noun + 是 + Adj + 的. For example:

• 他是男的 - "He is male"
• 那辆车是新的 - "That car is new"
• 那只猫是黑的 - "That cat is black"