Hi @YuQinCai, @Constance_Fang @Fiona and the ChinesePod team, my question is this:
Hello guys , sorry that I have another question so fast .
I am quit confused with 谁
if I want to say
who is this guy ,
( 这个人是谁 ）
is it grammatically correct if I say it this way ?
(谁是这个人)
Hi 勇士！
Only 这个人是谁 is the grammatically correct way to say “who’s this guy?”. An important thing to remember is in English, question words have to be placed at the beginning of the sentence. But in Chinese, we use the same word order for statements and questions. For example, we say “这个人是谁”(“Who is this?” ) and “这个人是我妈妈(’'This is my mom”). Notice the different order of “this” but “这个人” still stays at the beginning?
“谁是这个人” is following the English grammar.
In Chinese, the what/which/who/where are always the objects in a sentence even though it’s a question. This is different from English. So “这个人是谁” is correct but “谁是这个人” is not grammatically correct.