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HSK 2 Grammar: Patient Subjects (受事主语)
In Mandarin Chinese, the receiver of an action can stand directly in the subject position without using a passive word. This structure, known as a patient subject (受事主语), is widely used in everyday speech to report the current state or completion of known items.
晚饭做好了。
'Dinner' (晚饭) is the patient subject receiving the action of cooking, and 好了 indicates the completed result.
× 那封信写。
Incorrect. In a statement reporting that the letter has been written, a patient subject cannot be followed by the bare verb 写 alone without a complement or aspect marker. Use the corrected version instead.
Corrected example: 那封信写好了。
Read the full explanation and examples
What Is a Patient Subject?
In the supplied HSK 2 grammar outline, under sentence components (句子成分) and subjects (主语), learners are introduced to the patient subject (受事主语). In many languages, the subject of an active sentence is the agent—the person or thing performing the action. However, in Chinese, the noun at the very beginning of a sentence frequently represents the patient—the person or thing that receives or undergoes the action.
When English puts the receiver of an action first, it normally switches to a passive verb form, such as 'Dinner is cooked' or 'The ticket has been bought.' Mandarin Chinese often expresses this simply by placing the affected item in the subject position followed by an active verb phrase that describes the resulting state. No passive marker like 被 (bèi) is needed or even natural for routine status updates.
晚饭做好了。
'Dinner' (晚饭) is the patient subject receiving the action of cooking, and 好了 indicates the completed result.
Core Structure and Predicate Requirements
Because the noun at the start of the sentence is not performing the action, the predicate cannot usually be a single, bare action verb. Instead, the predicate explains what has happened to the subject or what state it is now in. At the HSK 2 level, this is typically achieved by adding a result complement, an aspect particle such as 了 (le), or modifying adverbs like 已经 (yǐjīng, already) or 都 (dōu, all).
去北京的车票已经买了。
The specific ticket is placed in the subject position, with 已经 and 了 showing that the purchase is complete.
那件白衣服洗干净了。
Uses the demonstrative phrase 那件 to mark a definite item, followed by the result complement 干净 (clean) and 了.
- The patient subject is the receiver of the verb's action (such as dinner, train tickets, or clothes).
- The adverb slot is optional, often filled by words indicating time, completion, or scope, or by negation when reporting what is not yet done.
- The verb and its following complement or particle work together to state the completed outcome or current condition of the subject.
When to Use It: Agent Subject vs. Patient Subject
Choosing between an agent subject (who did it) and a patient subject (what was affected) depends on what information matters most in the conversation. When the speaker wants to emphasize who performed the task, the agent comes first and the receiver stays after the verb as a standard object.
我写完作业了。
Standard agent-subject sentence: 'I' (我) is the doer and 'homework' (作业) is the object after the verb.
作业写完了。
The homework is the patient subject; the doer is not stated. The speaker may assume the doer is known or simply treat that identity as unimportant.
In the first example above, the focus is on what 'I' did. In the second example, the speaker treats 'the homework' as the shared starting point and simply reports that it is finished. A patient subject is especially natural when the doer of the action is obvious from context, unknown, or unimportant to the listener.
Important Limits and Common Mistakes
A known item is a useful starting point for these examples: 那件衣服 identifies particular clothes. But a patient subject can also be generic, as in 衣服要洗干净 (“Clothes should be washed clean”). Do not equate the subject position with a requirement that a particular object was already mentioned.
Second, as noted earlier, you cannot usually leave a bare, monosyllabic action verb at the end of a patient-subject statement when reporting that a task is done. Without a result complement, aspect marker, or modal auxiliary, the sentence sounds incomplete and ungrammatical.
× 那封信写。
Incorrect. In a statement reporting that the letter has been written, a patient subject cannot be followed by the bare verb 写 alone without a complement or aspect marker. Use the corrected version instead.
Corrected example: 那封信写好了。
那封信写好了。
Correct replacement. Adding the result complement 好 and the particle 了 completes the predicate and describes the state of the letter.
Frequently asked questions
Is a patient-subject sentence a passive sentence?
A patient subject describes the subject’s semantic role: it undergoes the action. The examples here have no 被; some grammatical descriptions call such clauses unmarked passives. The role itself does not require one particular label or forbid a 被 construction in another context.
Can people be used as a patient subject?
Yes. 孩子接回来了 (“The child has been picked up and brought back”) is natural when the context makes the roles clear. Inanimate objects are convenient teaching examples, but the grammar is not restricted to them.
Where does 受事主语 appear in the HSK syllabus?
In the 2025-11 edition of the HSK outline (labeled for 2026-07 implementation), 受事主语 is listed at Level 2 under sentence components (句子成分 - 主语). Please note that syllabus levels reflect the reference outline rather than a guarantee of which exam version a specific test center administers on a given date.
