At some point in my Mandarin studies I realized I was completely confused about directional commands (e.g. “come here”, “go there”, “come in”, “go out”, etc.). Finally I sat a teacher down to get it all straight.  Now,  first let’s see if you’ve already got it straight. Here are some directional commands in English. Let’s see if you know the Mandarin equivalent (answers in follow up post in a few days).  Please post in English and ones you think I missed:

“Come in”

“Go out”

“Come up”

“Come down”

“Go up”

“Go down”

“Pick up”

“Put down”

“Put on” (clothes)

“Take off” (clothes)

“Put in”

“Take out”

Get on (vehicle)

Get off (vehicle)

Put off (pin, barrett, hat, decoration to wear)

Take off (pin, barrett, hat, decoration to wear)

“Come over here”

“Go over there”

“Get up”

“Stand up”

“Sit down”

“come back”

“go back”

“bring with” (2 ways to say, i.e something you take with you, and another thing you take away with you – as you go off somewhere)

“bring back to” (like a book you bring back to the library)

“bring back with” (like going to the library and bringing the book home with you)

Filed under: Learning Chinese