Learn how to use question word who in Chinese and how to say families and friends in Chinese.
shéi; shuí 谁 who
谁 is the question word WHO in Chinese. It can be pronounced in two different ways: shéi or shuí. For example,
Q: tā shì shéi
who is he
A: tā shì wǒ de bàba
he is my dad
Q: tā shì shuí
who is she
A: tā shì wǒ de māma
she is my mom
The sentence word order in Chinese goes like this:
Subject - Verb - Object or S - V - O for short
When we are asking a question, the word order does not change, it is still S-V-O:
When the Possessive Particle 的 goes after personal pronouns, you can usually skip 的 for people who have a very close relationship to you.
There is actually a word to say parents in Chinese, which is jiāzhǎng 家长. But for beginners, we can just say 爸爸妈妈 instead to mean the same thing. And to say friends in Chinese we can just say the word péngyou 朋友. If we want to be specific and say "more than one friend", we can use the Plural Particle 们 and say péngyoumen 朋友们.