Breakdown of xìage xīngqī tā dǎsuàn qù tīng yí gè yīnyuèhuì.
Used when counting nouns or when specifying a specific instance of a noun.
There are also classifiers for people, for bound items such as books and magazines, for cups/glasses, etc.
The classifier 个 is a general one that can be used for any of these.
Questions & Answers about xìage xīngqī tā dǎsuàn qù tīng yí gè yīnyuèhuì.
个 here is a measure word, but in this expression it’s half-way to being a fixed chunk.
- 下个星期 and 下星期 both mean “next week” and are both common and correct.
- Using 个 is slightly more colloquial and very natural in spoken Mandarin.
- Leaving out 个, 下星期, is also very common, especially in the south and in Taiwan.
You can treat 下个星期 as “the next week” and 下星期 as “next week” – but in practice, they are interchangeable in most contexts.
All three mean “next week”, but they differ in style and frequency:
- 下个星期 – extremely common, neutral, very natural in spoken Mandarin.
- 下星期 – also common; often heard in casual speech; some speakers just prefer this shorter form.
- 下周 – a bit more concise and often feels slightly more formal or written, used a lot in news, emails, notices, etc.
You can safely use 下个星期 in almost any situation.
This is because of tone sandhi (tone change) rules for 一:
- Basic tone of 一 is yī (first tone).
- But:
- Before a fourth-tone syllable, 一 changes to second tone (yí).
- Before first, second, or third tone, it usually changes to fourth tone (yì).
- It stays yī when said alone or when emphasizing the number “one”.
In 一个 (gè is underlyingly 4th tone), 一 appears before a (historically) 4th-tone syllable, so it becomes yí ge. That’s why you say:
- 一个 → yí ge
- 一个音乐会 → yí ge yīnyuèhuì
Even though 个 is often pronounced with a neutral tone in speech, the sandhi rule still treats it as fourth tone for this purpose.
Both are possible, but they’re slightly different:
听音乐会
- General: “go to concerts / listen to (a) concert(s).”
- No emphasis on the number; it’s just the activity.
听一个音乐会
- Literally “listen to one concert / a concert.”
- The measure word phrase 一个 makes it feel like a specific, countable, single event.
- It can feel a bit more like “go to a concert (one event, not more).”
In everyday speech, many people would simply say:
- 下个星期她打算去听音乐会。
Using 一个 is not wrong at all; it just emphasizes “one concert” a little more clearly.
For performances and events, 场 (chǎng) is a very natural, specific measure word:
- 一场音乐会 (yì chǎng yīnyuèhuì) – one (performance of a) concert.
So you have:
- 一个音乐会 – grammatically fine, using generic 个.
- 一场音乐会 – more specific and idiomatic for a concert as a performance/event.
Native speakers use both, but 一场音乐会 often sounds slightly more polished or precise.
You could say 听一个音乐会, but 去 adds the idea of going somewhere to do it:
- 听一个音乐会 – “listen to a concert” (the action itself).
- 去听一个音乐会 – “go (somewhere) to listen to a concert,” i.e. go to a concert.
In Mandarin, it’s very common to say:
- 去 + (verb) to mean “go and (verb)”:
- 去看电影 – go (and) watch a movie
- 去吃饭 – go (and) eat
- 去买东西 – go (and) buy things
Here, 去听 is exactly the same pattern: go and listen (attend).
Chinese typically orders sentence elements like this:
[Time] – [Subject] – [(Place) – (Manner)] – Verb – Object
So 下个星期她打算去听一个音乐会 follows a very natural pattern: time first.
Other common, correct positions for the time phrase are:
- 她下个星期打算去听一个音乐会。
- 她打算下个星期去听一个音乐会。
All three are grammatical. Some notes:
- Putting time at the very beginning (as in the original sentence) is extremely common and often sounds orderly and clear.
- Putting it right after the subject (option 1) is also very common.
- Putting it right before the main verb phrase (option 2) works too and sometimes sounds more “embedded” in the plan.
So you can choose any of those three without sounding wrong.
打算 expresses a plan or intention, often with some thought behind it:
- 她打算去听一个音乐会。
→ She plans / intends to go to a concert.
Rough differences:
打算 – plan, intend (often with some concrete thinking or arrangement):
- 我打算明年去中国。 – I plan to go to China next year.
想 – want to / feel like / think about (may be weaker, just a desire or idea):
- 我想去听音乐会。 – I want to go to a concert.
要 – going to / want to / be about to (often sounds stronger or more definite):
- 她下个星期要去听音乐会。 – She is going to / will go to a concert next week.
So 打算 focuses on “this is my plan,” not just a casual wish and not just a prediction.
了 is not a future tense marker; Chinese doesn’t have tense the way English does.
Here, the action has not happened yet, so normally you don’t use 了. 打算 already tells us it’s a future plan.
To talk about a past action instead, you might say:
- 上个星期她去听了一个音乐会。 – Last week she went to a concert.
- 上个星期她听了一个音乐会。 – She listened to a concert last week.
Now 了 marks that the action was completed. In your original sentence about a future plan, 了 would be out of place.
Yes, subjects are often dropped in Chinese if they are clear from context.
If you’re already talking about her and it’s obvious you mean her, you can say:
- 下个星期打算去听一个音乐会。
If you are talking about your own plan, you often omit 我 and say:
- 下个星期打算去听一个音乐会。 – (I) plan to go to a concert next week.
However, in a standalone sentence with no context, including 她 makes it clearer who is planning this:
- 下个星期她打算去听一个音乐会。 – safest, fully explicit form.
Different activities take different verbs in Chinese:
听 (tīng) – listen (used with things you primarily hear):
- 听音乐 – listen to music
- 听音乐会 – (go) listen to a concert (attend a concert as audience)
- 听讲座 – attend (lit. listen to) a lecture
看 (kàn) – watch / look at (used with things you primarily watch):
- 看电影 – watch a movie
- 看比赛 – watch a (sports) match
- 看表演 – watch a performance
A 音乐会 is mainly about listening, so Mandarin uses 听.
音乐 – music (the art form/sound itself).
- 我喜欢听音乐。 – I like listening to music.
音乐会 – concert (an event where music is performed).
- 我明天要去听音乐会。 – I’m going to a concert tomorrow.
So 音乐会 is literally “music + meeting/gathering,” i.e. a concert.
Sentence:
下个星期 她 打算 去 听 一个 音乐会。
Pinyin with tones and neutral tones:
- 下 – xià (4th tone)
- 个 – ge (neutral tone; underlyingly 4th, but pronounced light and short)
- 星期 – xīngqī (xīng 1st tone, qī 1st tone)
- 她 – tā (1st tone)
- 打算 – dǎsuàn (dǎ 3rd tone, suàn 4th tone)
- 去 – qù (4th tone)
- 听 – tīng (1st tone)
- 一 – yí (2nd tone here, due to tone sandhi)
- 个 – ge (neutral tone)
- 音乐会 – yīnyuèhuì (yīn 1st, yuè 4th, huì 4th)
So a natural reading is:
xià·ge xīngqī tā dǎsuàn qù tīng yí·ge yīnyuèhuì.
with 个 after 下 and after 一 both in neutral tone and very light.