不bù & 没méi | Negation in Chinese

Today we are going to learn the difference between the negative words 不bù & 没méi

bù méi

不bù：To express the willingness or habit.

wǒ bù xiǎng qù shāng chǎng

**我不想去商场

(I don’t want to go to the shopping mall)

wǒ bù chōu yān

**我不抽烟

(I don’t smoke)

没méi: It's objective narration. To negate something in the past.

wǒ zuó tiān méi qù shāng chǎng

**我昨天没去商场

(I didn’t go to the mall yesterday)

wǒ shàng ge xīng qī méi chōu yān

**我上个星期没抽烟

(I didn't smoke last week)

不bù: To negate a certain quality or nature

zhèi ge píng guǒ bù hóng

** 这个苹果不红

(The apple is not ripe)

没méi：To negate the change of a certain quality or nature

zhèi ge píng guò hái méi hóng

** 这个苹果还没红

(The apple is still not getting ripe)

不bù：Can be used in the past, present and future

yǐ qián wǒ bù pǎo bù, xiàn zài wǒ de

**以前我不跑步，现在我的

xí guàn shì měi tiān pǎo bù

习惯是每天跑步

(I didn’t run before, and now my habit is running everyday)

wǒ xiàn zài bú qù chī fàn

**我现在不去吃饭，

wǒ hái yǒu gōng zuò yào zuò

我还有工作要做

(I don’t go to eat now. I have work to do)

míng tiān wǒ bú qù shàng bān

** 明天我不去上班，

jiā lǐ yǒu shì

家里有事

(I don’t go to work tomorrow. I have some personal things to deal with)

没méi：Mostly used in the past

zuó tiān wǒ qǐng tā chī fàn tā méi lái

** 昨天我请他吃饭他没来，

yīn wèi tā jiā bān dào hěn wǎn

因为他加班到很晚

(I invited him to come over to have dinner yesterday but he didn’t come, cause he worked overtime)

The above are the differences between

不bù & 没méi.

There are some verbs that only use 不bù:

--不是bú shì (is not)

--不能bù néng (cannot)

--不会bú huì (is not able to)

--不知道bù zhī dào (not know)

--不应该bù yīng gāi (not should)

--不像bú xiàng (is not like)

--不想bù xiǎng (not want)

ps: only when 想xiǎng means want, the genative word is 不想bù xiǎng

There's a very common verb that only use 没méi：

--没有méi yǒu (not have)

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不bù & 没méi | Negation in Chinese

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