Chinese Prefixes, Suffixes, and Infixes: All You Need to Know About Affixes
Word Structure: Affixes 附加式
This is part 6 “Chinese Prefixes, Suffixes and Infixes” of an 8-part series exploring all 7 types of Chinese compound words. Click below for the other parts:
Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6 – Part 7 – Part 8
Affixes
Affixed words divide into Prefixes, Infixes, and Suffixes. Chinese has fewer affixes than other languages. Think of these like how we might say “pretty,” “prettier,” “prettiest,” “prettiness.” You could even invent a word called “prettyism” and most people would understand that “-ism” is the suffix referring to the ideology around “pretty.”
Chinese Prefixes
老- lǎo
Familiarity- Put 老 in front of a surname to form a respectful nickname. Almost like if you said “Brother Wang,” it’s a term of endearment. Remember, even though “老” can have the meaning of “Old,” when used as a Chinese prefix it does not carry this meaning.
老王- lǎowáng – Brother Wang
老陈- lǎochén – Brother Chen
老张- lǎozhāng – Brother Zhang
Numbers with 老
If you put 老 before a number (e.g., 老二，老三）it is indicating some form of seniority, with number one being 老大(dà “big”), not 老一. So, if there were four children in a family, the firstborn would be 老大, and the last born would be 老四 (sì- “four”).
小- xiǎo
小 is used in the same way as 老 in front of a Surname. Although it carries a little less respect than the prefix 老, it is still a term of endearment, kind of like saying “Buddy Wang.”
小王 xiǎowáng – Buddy Wang
小陈 xiǎochén – Lil’ Chen
小张 xiǎozhāng – Buddy Zhang
Chinese Prefix: 第- dì
This Chinese character prefix is used merely to form counting numbers (or ordinal numbers). In the same way that we would change “three” to “third” to indicate that three is part of a sequence, in Chinese, you take 三 and make it 第三 to indicate it is the “third.”
第一 – First
第二 – Second
第一万- wàn – Ten-Thousandth
You can also add a measure word (e.g., 个 gè) after the numeral to indicate that it’s the third “one.”
第一个 – The first one
第二个 – The second one
第一万个 – The ten-thousandth one
Chinese Prefix: 初- chū
In the interest of completeness, we’ve included the prefix 初, and it is used in front of numbers to indicate the year in elementary school or to show the first ten days of the lunar month. No need to worry about this for now, as these two concepts are unlikely applicable to your life.
可- kě
When combined with a verb like 爱 (ài- To Love) or 笑 (xiào- To Laugh), it changes the verb to an adjective in the same way that we use “-able” in English.
可爱 kěài – Lovable
可笑 kěxiào – Laughable
可吃 kěchī – Edible (吃- “To Eat”)
可怕 kěpà – Dreadful (怕- “To Dread”)
好 & 难 have opposite meanings, good or easy and hard or difficult respectively. When added in front of a verb like “Look,” “Smell” or “Use,” it turns them into an adjective, indicating the verb is either “easy” or “hard” to do depending on the prefix.
好看- hǎokàn – Easy + Look= Pretty
难看 nánkàn – Difficult + Look= Ugly
好闻- hǎowén – Good + Smell= Fragrant
难闻 nánwén – Difficult + Smell= Smelly
好用- hǎoyòng – Easy + Use= Easy to Use
难用 nányòng – Hard + Use= Hard to Use
Chinese Infixes
This word is a little bit less frequent than the Chinese prefix or suffix, but you guessed it, an “Infix” goes in the middle of a word to form a new word. Mandarin only has two.
得 de & 不 bu
The structure of these is Verb + 得/不 + Adjective. It refers to the possible actions in the Verb-How structure. For example, the word “听懂” (tīngdǒng) is “Listen” (听) and “Understand” (懂) and means “To understand.” If you add 不 or 得 in between, you are either saying “Listen – Not – Understand” OR “Listen- Obtain -Understand”
听不懂 tīngbudǒng – Cannot understand
听得懂 tīngdedǒng – Can understand
儿 er
When used as a suffix, 儿 takes the tone of the previous character and does not have its own syllable. For example, 这儿 (zhè- this) is not “zhè er,” but rather one syllable “zhèr.”
Remember, when it is referring to the actual noun “Son” (e.g., 儿子 ér zi) then it is 2nd tone, but in that case, it is not an Affix.
Many times, adding the “儿” is merely a dialectical suffix and does not change the meaning of the word, but sometimes it will change meaning, the following are some examples:
| 这- zhè
This | 那- nà
That | 火- huǒ
Fire |
| 这儿- zhèr
Here | 那儿- nàr
There | 火儿- huǒr
To be angry |
Chinese Suffix: 们 men
When placed after human or pronouns this suffix 们 pluralizes the noun. When used after human nouns, except for pronouns it is only used for two-syllable nouns, as such:
朋友们- péngyǒumen – Friends
同事们- tóngshìmen – Colleagues
学生们- xuéshēngmen – Students
When used after pronouns, one syllable is acceptable:
我们- wǒmen – Us
你们- nǐmen – You (Plural)
他们- tāmen – Them
Chinese Suffix: 学 xué
When you see 学 as a suffix, it is just like “-ology” or “-istry” in English, it is merely referring to the academic discipline that is in front of it.
化学- huàxué – Transform + -ology= Chemistry
社会学- shèhuìxué – Society + -ology= Sociology
动物学- dòngwùxué – Animal + -ology= Zoology
家 jiā
This is the same as -ist in English; it is merely referring to a person who is an expert in the field listed in front of the 家 suffix.
作家- zuòjiā – Create + -ist= Writer
科学家- kēxuéjiā – Science + -ist= Scientist
音乐家- yīnyuèjiā – Music + -ist= Musician
化 huà
This suffix 化 is the same of “-ize” or “-ify” in English in the sense that it turns a noun or adjective into a verb.
美化- měihuà – Beautiful + -ize= Beautify
商业化- shāngyèhuà –Commercial + -ize= Commercialize
同化- tónghuà – Similar + -ize= Assimilate
Chinese Suffixes: 子 zi & 头 tou
Both of these suffixes do not hold semantic meaning in Chinese anymore. They developed over a long period as Mandarin slowly lost many tonal and consonant distinctions. This change caused the language to have too many homophones, so one of the solutions to this was to add “子” or “头” after many nouns to help distinguish them from other homophones.
Both 子 and 头 have the neutral 5th tone when suffixes. When 头 is NOT a suffix, it means “head” and is pronounced with second tone tóu. When 子 is NOT a suffix, it means “Son” or “Child” and is pronounced with third tone zǐ.
There is no shortcut to learning which nouns have 子 or 头，but luckily by following the Mandarin Blueprint Sequence you will come across all the most common ones before finishing the sequence.
When there is a noun that contains 头 or 子 as independent words, it can drop the 头 or 子 when combined with other morphemes. Examples:
木头 mùtou – Wood
木桌 mùzhuō – Wooden Table
木勺 mùsháo – Wooden Spoon
木板 mùbǎn – Wooden Board
鞋子 xiézi – Shoes
皮鞋 píxié – Leather Shoes
布鞋 bùxié – Cloth Shoes
拖鞋 tuōxié – Slippers
And if you want to learn how to produce, understand, and read every Mandarin syllable just like a native speaker in record time go ahead and check out our Pronunciation Mastery Course.
