26.2 Demonstrative Expressions for Locations I

Note that some of the expressions below have more than one pronunciation. For these expressions, we will only use the highlighted pronunciations in this book. You can focus on them first and learn the other pronunciations later.

In Grammar and Vocabulary 2.5, we learned to form demonstrative constructions with 呢 ni1 / nei1 and 嗰 go2. We learned that we use 呢 ni1 (‘this, these’) to refer to something close to us and 嗰 go2 to refer to something far away from us (‘that, those’).

We can also use 呢 ni1 and 嗰 go2 to form demonstrative expressions to refer to a specific location based on its distance from us.

We combine 呢 ni1 and 嗰 go2 with 度 dou6 (‘place’) to mean ‘here’ and ‘there’. The 度 dou6 in these expressions is the same as the 度 dou6 in 邊度 bin1 dou6 (‘where’).

We combine 呢 ni1 and 嗰 go2 with 邊 bin6 / bin1 (‘side’) or 面 min6 (‘side’) to mean ‘this side, this way’ and ‘that side, that way’. Notice 邊 bin can be pronounced with Tone 6 (bin6) and Tone 1 (bin1).