們 and 被

 

I would like to share with you a lesson plan we used back in 2017 Chinese class. It talks about 們 and 被.

 

Some people like to use 們 to indicate plural form of something. For instance, some people call "elders" 長老們, "brothers and sisters" 弟兄姊妹們, "congregations" 會眾們. There are two points you need to remember regarding 們. (1) It's used on people only. (2) Sometimes it's not needed. In all three examples above, you're better off leaving out the 們. The trouble is, there's no clear, set rules so you simply have to listen more and read more to get it right.

 

Some people like to use 被 to indicate passive voice as in "I was told" 我被告訴  or "he was appointed as a pioneer" 他被委任做先驅. In the first example, it's way better to say 有人告訴我 (Somebody told me). In the second example, I prefer 他受委任做先驅. I notice that using 被 is gaining more acceptance and it's not considered wrong these days. It's just that usually it's something bad follows 被, such as 被殺 (was killed), 被逮捕 (was arrested), 被騙 (was scammed). Unfortunately there's no clear and set rules for that either so you'll have to be careful with 被. My advice is to follow what Mrs. Chun, my high school English teacher, said: avoid passive voice if you can.