Negation: 不 versus 没(有)
Use 不 for what you don’t do, don’t want or won’t do, and for adjectives. Use 没(有) to say something did not happen — and always with 有.
结构
不 + 动词/形容词（现在、习惯、将来） ｜ 没(有) + 动词（过去未发生）
讲解
本文中的中文词语都可以激活，查看词典释义。
Chinese has two negators and they divide the work by time and by verb type. negates habits, preferences, states and future plans: “I don’t drink coffee”, “I’m not going tomorrow”. It is also the only negator used with adjectives: , . () says that an event did not take place: “I didn’t go to school yesterday.” Two shortcuts help. First, the verb is negated only by — , never . Second, already carries the “it didn’t happen” meaning, so the completed-action cannot appear in the same clause: , not . Note that does not mean “past tense” by itself; can refer to a past refusal that still stands, while states plainly that the going never occurred. In speech and are interchangeable before a verb, but a short answer on its own is .
正确
Say each one out loud before moving on. The audio is a reference pronunciation, not a model to imitate exactly — match the tone contour, not the voice.
我不喝咖啡。
Wǒ (third tone, dipping) bù (fourth tone, falling) hē (first tone, high and level) kāfēi. (first tone, high and level)···
I don’t drink coffee.
我昨天没去学校。我昨天沒去學校。
Wǒ (third tone, dipping) zuótiān (second tone, rising) méi (second tone, rising) qù (fourth tone, falling) xuéxiào. (second tone, rising)···
I didn’t go to school yesterday.
他没有姐姐。他沒有姐姐。
Tā (first tone, high and level) méiyǒu (second tone, rising) jiějie. (third tone, dipping)···
He doesn’t have an older sister.
错误 — 常见错误
These sentences are wrong. They are printed here on purpose, each one paired with the repair and the reason, because the error you can recognise is the error you stop making.
不太对
Incorrect sentence: 我昨天不去学校。
正确
Correct sentence: 我昨天没去学校。
为什么: With a past time word like 昨天 and a one-off event, the negator is 没. 不去 would mean a refusal or a standing habit, not “it didn’t happen”.
不太对
Incorrect sentence: 我没有喜欢咖啡。
正确
Correct sentence: 我不喜欢咖啡。
为什么: 喜欢 describes an ongoing feeling, not an event, so it takes 不. 没 is for things that failed to occur.
不太对
Incorrect sentence: 我不有钱。
正确
Correct sentence: 我没有钱。
为什么: 有 is the one verb that refuses 不 outright. “Not to have” is always 没有.
对比
Most errors with this pattern are not errors about this pattern — they are a neighbouring pattern arriving at the wrong moment. Read these side by side.
了 marks that something happened; 没 marks that it did not. Because they say opposite things about the same event, they never share a clause: the negative of 我吃了饭 is 我没吃饭 — the 了 simply disappears. Learners who translate “I did not eat” piece by piece often produce 我没吃了饭, which is always wrong.
了 for a completed action →小测验
第 1 题 / 3总分: 0
Fill the gap with the correct negator: “I didn’t go to the park yesterday.”
我昨天 ___ 去公园。