Level 1 · Beginner
也 (also) and 都 (all)
Subj. + 也 / 都 + Verb
也 (yě, "also") and 都 (dōu, "all/both") are adverbs, and Chinese adverbs live in one place only: right before the verb. 我也是学生 "I'm also a student", 他们都是学生 "they're all students".
English lets "too" float to the end of the sentence; Chinese never does. And when 也 and 都 appear together, 也 comes first: 我们也都很忙 "we are all busy too".
Examples
我也是学生。
我也是學生。
wǒ yě shì xué sheng
I'm a student too.
他们都是中国人。
他們都是中國人。
tā men dōu shì zhōng guó rén
They are all Chinese.
我们都喜欢猫。
我們都喜歡貓。
wǒ men dōu xǐ huan māo
We all like cats.
我也想去。
wǒ yě xiǎng qù
I want to go too.
Common mistakes
✗ 我是学生也。
✓ 我也是学生。
也 goes before the verb, never at the end of the sentence.
Related grammar points
Practice this pattern in graded stories like A Traffic Jam Afternoon (Part 3), The Customer Who Came Back (Part 2), A Little Accident (Part 3) inside the Literate Chinese app.
