A Character a Day 那

Video script:

Good morning my friend. In this video we are going to talk about character  那. It is a common demonstrative pronoun, 指示代词. It demonstrates somebody or something farther away from the speaker. Its basic meaning is that or those. First let's see how to write it.

I noticed that after learn writing Chinese character for a while, some students start to wonder how to write the character a bit faster. Well maybe you should try to learn how to write the semi-cursive script, 行书. The one I just wrote is called regular script, 楷书.  Let me show you how to write 那 in semi-cursive script.

Please refer to my previous video about 这to know more detail about the structure of the noun phrase that follows 这. Those rules also apply to 那. Whether 那 means 'that' or 'those' depends on the noun phrase following is a singular or plural one.

For example,

那孩子   or  那个孩子    both mean that child

那两个孩子     means those two children

那些  means those, which is used to refer to multiple objects or people without specific quantity

那些孩子  those children

那些图片  those pictures

In colloquial Chinese, you may hear people use 那 more frequently than you think. 那（么）  then, in that case .It  works as conjunction to connect two sentences. For example,

你去，那（么）我就不去了。 You go, then I am not going.