May I help you? 我可以幫你嗎

Dear friends,

Here is an easy lesson for you. I created it in less than one day, so just post on my blog for your reference.

The first phrase "May I help you" is easy in English, yet somehow it's a little bit unusual in Chinese, maybe that's because different cultures in using languages while helping people. Anyway, it's not natural in Chinese, it's just a modern literal Chinese translation from English.

May I help you?

我可以幫你嗎

This is not an inverted sentence in Chinese, so it starts from the subject 我 (I), then the other part of the sentence, on the end of the phrase, a question tag 嗎 is added to present the whole thing as an interrogative sentence.

我 (I) + 可以 (may) + 幫 (help) + 你 (you) + 嗎 (question tag)

The second phrase is asking for help:

I need your help!

我需要你的幫忙

the structure is:

我 (I) + 需要 (need) + 你的 (your) + 幫忙 (help)

There are many 2-character words in modern Chinese, somehow they are the combination of 2 related characters, you don't need to memorize all of them though, since there are too many variations of them. Please be patient to understand the basic characters, then you will know how to handle those 2-character words later.

The third phrase is a variation of the first phrase "May I help you?" as follow:

Do you need help?

你需要幫忙嗎

Again, we don't use inverted sentence in Chinese, just starting from the subject 你 (you), then adding a question tag 嗎 on the end of the phrase as an interrogative sentence.

the structure of this phrase is:

你 (you) + 需要 (need) + 幫忙 (help) + 嗎 (question tag)

The last phrase is for appreciation:

Thanks for your help!

謝謝你的幫忙

the structure is simple:

謝謝 (thanks) + 你的 (your) + 幫忙 (help)

That's all for this lesson, thanks for reading my blog, and please remember subscribing my YouTube channel for more updated lessons.

Please feel free to check the analysis of phrases and vocabulary of this lesson from my site via:

http://www.chinese-word.com/lessons/lesson-28.html

Have a nice day!

Andres Leo