Level 35 Complete

Click Here to See Your Overall Character & Word Learning Progress

(The text from this lesson is also sent to your email after you click "lesson complete." If you didn't receive the email, it may be because you have email notifications turned off. Here's a video on how to update your email settings.)

你为什么学汉语学得那么好？不是因为你特别聪明 cōngming，而是因为你学汉语的方法还不错。

不是...，而是... Not this…, but instead that…

As you can see from the above sentence, there's a super useful grammatical structure surrounding the word 而是 that you just acquired. Any time you want to say "not [insert thing A], but instead [insert thing B]" you can use this structure.

不是我不想要吃面包，而是我对面包过敏 guòmǐn - allergic
It's not that I don't want to eat bread, but that I'm allergic to it.

不是我需要把手机放在那张桌子上，而是我觉得那个地方放手机最方便。
It's not that I need to put my mobile phone on that table, it's that I think it's the most convenient place for it.

Stay Relaxed. You're Doing So Well.

The enemy of language acquisition is anxiety. We hope these types of emails are informative, but sometimes with grammar points, people start to get a little stressed. We empathize completely. But remember: Thinking about the language is fun and useful (in small doses), but it constitutes about 2% of the acquisition process. 

Oh hey, after the next level you will know 80% of Chinese by frequency, what are you waiting for?

Click Here to Navigate Phase 5 Level Review Lessons