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到 has the meaning of ‘to go to’, ‘to arrive’, ‘up to’ ‘until’.
Now let’s take a look of the three major grammar points for 到:
1. Subject + 到 + place (+verb phrase)
to go to; to arrive
E.g.
wǒ dào chāo shì mǎi cài
我到超市买菜。
I am going to the supermarket to buy food (ingredients) for home cooking.
*菜 cài generally means ‘vegetable’, however, we sometimes also use it as a term for food in general.
tā dào cān tīng chī fàn
他到餐厅吃饭。
He go to the restaurant to have a meal.
*饭 fàn again, generally means ‘cooked rice’, but we also use it to describe food, or a meal.
2. 从 (cóng)place/time 到 place/time
From…to…
cóng jī chǎng dào huǒ chē zhàn
从机场到火车站
From airport to train station
cóng bā diǎn dào jiǔ diǎn
从八点到九点
From 8:00 to 9:00
3. 到 as result complement
Verb + 到
In Chinese, we add 到 behind a verb to describe the result of an action.
For example,
the Chinese character for ‘to listen’ is 听 tīng
This 听 is when you are listening to things, but may or may not actually hearing anything.
In contrast, when you can actually hear the sound that you’ve been actively searching for it, that is when 听到 come into place.
Other examples can be
说 shuō to talk, to speak
说到 shuō dào speak of…(the result of the ‘talk’)
(说到这里 speak of this; come to think of it…)
做 zuò to do
做到 zuò dào have done, have achieved
说到做到 shuō dào zuò dào
Sui the action to the word; act on what one says
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