Learn Hardcore Chinese: zhōumò tā chángcháng dài háizi qù kànkan qīnqi, gēn āyí zài jiā lǐ liáotiān. - On weekends she often takes the child to visit relatives and chats at home with her aunt.

Beginning position (周末她常常…) feels more like “speaking about weekends…”
在周末 is more explicit (“during weekends”) and feels a bit more formal or written.

Why is 常常 placed after 她 and before 带? Can it go anywhere else?

Adverbs like 常常 (often), 经常, 总是 usually go after the subject and before the main verb:

她常常带孩子…
我经常去图书馆。

Other acceptable placements:

周末她常常带孩子去看看亲戚… (subject first, then adverb, then verb)
她带孩子常常去看看亲戚… is possible but less natural; it slightly emphasizes the action of taking the kids as a unit.

Most natural: [Subject] + [Adverb] + [Verb], as in the original sentence.

What exactly does 带孩子去看看亲戚 mean? Why do we need 带 and 去?

The structure is:

带孩子去看看亲戚
- 带 – to bring / to take (someone along)
- 孩子 – child / children
- 去 – to go (away from the current place)
- 看看 – to (go and) see / visit
- 亲戚 – relatives

So 带孩子去看看亲戚 is literally:
“take the child(ren) to go (and) see relatives”.

Compare:

她去看看亲戚。 – She goes to see (her) relatives.
她带孩子去看看亲戚。 – She takes the kids along to go see (her) relatives.

带 emphasizes she’s not going alone; she’s bringing the kids.

Why is 看看 used instead of just 看? What does the reduplication mean?

Reduplicating verbs like 看 → 看看 is very common in Mandarin. It usually gives a sense of:

briefly / casually doing something
“have a look”, “drop by and see”
making the action sound lighter and more friendly or less serious

So:

去看亲戚 – go see relatives (neutral, more matter‑of‑fact)
去看看亲戚 – go (and) visit relatives, drop by to see them, sounds more relaxed / friendly

In this context, 看看 fits well because visiting relatives is usually a casual, friendly activity.

Does 亲戚 mean “relative” or “relatives”? Why is there no plural marker or measure word?

亲戚 is a noun meaning “relative” in general; Chinese often leaves number unspecified:

亲戚 can be “a relative” or “relatives” depending on context.
Chinese doesn’t require a plural marker like English -s.

If you really want to make it clearly singular or countable, you can add a measure word:

一个亲戚 – one relative
很多亲戚 – many relatives
几个亲戚 – several relatives

But here, the general idea “visit relatives” is enough, so 亲戚 alone is natural.

What does 跟 mean here? Is it like “with” or “and”?

In 跟阿姨在家里聊天, 跟 introduces the person you do something with:

跟阿姨聊天 – chat with (your) aunt

So 跟 here is similar to English with, not “and” in the sense of joining nouns:

我跟他去。 – I go with him.
跟朋友聊天。 – chat with friends.

You could also say 和阿姨聊天; 跟 and 和 are largely interchangeable in this “with (someone)” sense in everyday speech.

Who is 阿姨 here? Is it always “aunt”?

阿姨 has several common uses:

Mother’s younger sister (formal kinship sense: “maternal aunt”)
Any adult woman of your parents’ generation that you address politely (like “Auntie” in some English varieties)
Sometimes: a nanny, housekeeper, or cleaning lady (because families address them as 阿姨)

In this sentence, without more context, 阿姨 most naturally means:

“(her) aunt”
or
“(a) woman she calls Auntie” (a family friend, neighbor, etc.)

It’s not limited strictly to blood relatives in everyday speech.

Why do we say 在家里聊天 instead of just 聊天在家里? What’s the role of 在 and 里?

Mandarin word order is basically:

[Location phrase] + [Verb]

So:

在家里聊天 – chat at home / in the house

Putting the location after the verb (聊天在家里) is generally wrong in Mandarin (except in a few special patterns).

在 marks the location; 里 (“inside”) is adding “inside-ness”:

在家聊天 – chat at home
在家里聊天 – also “chat at home”; often slightly more concrete/physical (inside the house), but in everyday speech they are almost interchangeable.

So 在家聊天 and 在家里聊天 are both natural; the original just chose 家里.

What is 聊天 grammatically? Can it take an object, like “chat something”?

聊天 is a verb (more precisely, a verb‑object compound: 聊 + 天). Used as a whole, 聊天 = “to chat, to have a chat”.

他们在家里聊天。 – They are chatting at home.

You normally do not attach a direct object to 聊天:

❌ 聊天工作 – incorrect
✅ 聊工作 – to talk about work
✅ 聊天，聊聊工作。 – chat, (and) talk about work

So if you want to say what the topic is, use 聊 + [topic]:

他们在家里聊工作。 – They talk about work at home.
我们聊一聊你的计划。 – Let’s talk about your plans.

聊天 by itself just focuses on the act of chatting, not the specific content.

Why isn’t there any 了 in this sentence? It describes actions; shouldn’t we mark completion?

This sentence describes a habitual action (what she often does on weekends), not a one‑time completed event. In Mandarin:

For habits / routines, you normally don’t use 了:
- 我每天喝咖啡。 – I drink coffee every day.
- 周末她常常带孩子去看看亲戚。 – On weekends she often takes the kids to visit relatives.

了 is more for:

completed, one‑off events
a change of state

For example:

昨天她带孩子去看了亲戚。 – Yesterday she took the kids to visit relatives. (one completed event)

So in the original sentence, 了 would be unnatural because the focus is on a repeated habit.

Is 周末她常常带孩子去看看亲戚，跟阿姨在家里聊天。 one sentence or two? Why just a comma and no connector like 然后?

In Chinese, it’s very common to:

link two related actions with just a comma, without an explicit connector.

Here it essentially means:

She often takes the kids to visit relatives, and (then) chats with her aunt at home.

We could make the sequence explicit:

周末她常常带孩子去看看亲戚，然后跟阿姨在家里聊天。

Adding 然后 (“then”) is fine but not necessary. The simple comma already suggests a sequence of related activities in one time frame (on weekends).

Does 孩子 mean “child” or “children” here? Why no plural marker like 们?

孩子 can mean:

a child
or
child(ren) in general, depending on context.

Chinese normally does not mark plural on nouns unless you specifically need to:

孩子们 – the children (plural, often a specific group, like a class)
孩子 – child / children (general)

In daily conversation, when talking about a mother’s routine:

她带孩子去看看亲戚。 is naturally understood as “she takes the kid(s)” (whatever number she actually has).

If you really need to specify:

带一个孩子 – take one child
带两个孩子 – take two children
带孩子们 – take the children (emphasis on them as a group)

Why is 她 used, and how is it different from 他 and 它 if they’re all pronounced tā?

Spoken Mandarin:

他 / 她 / 它 are all pronounced tā (same sound).

Written Mandarin distinguishes:

他 – he / him (male or default when gender is unknown or irrelevant)
她 – she / her (female)
它 – it (animals, objects, abstract things)

In this sentence, 她 tells you the person is female.
In everyday speech, you won’t hear any difference; only writing shows which tā is meant.