Learn Hardcore Chinese: wǒ jiějie yǐjīng dàxué bìyè le, xiànzài zài gōngsī gōngzuò. - My older sister has already graduated from university and now works at a company.

In everyday spoken Chinese, when the possessor is a pronoun (我, 你, 他 etc.) and the possessed noun is a very close family member or relationship word, people often drop 的:

我妈妈 = 我的妈妈 = my mom
我哥哥 = 我的哥哥 = my older brother
我姐姐 = 我的姐姐 = my older sister

Using or omitting 的 here doesn’t change the basic meaning. Omitting 的:

sounds a bit more natural and intimate in many contexts
is especially common in colloquial speech

For more distant or less “intimate” relationships, 的 is usually kept:

我的老师 (my teacher) – usually not 我老师
我的同事 (my colleague) – usually not 我同事

So 我姐姐 is a very natural and common way to say “my older sister.”

Does 姐姐 (jiějie) mean “sister” or specifically “older sister”?

姐姐 means specifically older sister.

Chinese distinguishes older and younger siblings:

姐姐 – older sister
妹妹 – younger sister
哥哥 – older brother
弟弟 – younger brother

If you just say 姐姐, listeners will assume you mean a female sibling older than you. There is no single everyday word that means “sister” in general without specifying older/younger; people usually clarify, or just use context.

What does 已经 (yǐjīng) do in this sentence? Could we leave it out?

已经 means “already”. It emphasizes that the action or change is completed at this point.

我姐姐大学毕业了。 – My older sister graduated from college.
我姐姐已经大学毕业了。 – My older sister has already graduated from college.

If you omit 已经, the sentence is still correct, but it loses that extra emphasis of “already (by now)”. With 已经, you may be implying contrast or a timeline, for example:

She’s older, so she’s already graduated.
Compared to someone else who hasn’t, she already has.

So it’s optional, but it adds a nuance of “by now / already”.

What exactly does the 了 (le) at the end of 大学毕业了 mean?

The sentence-final 了 here is an aspect / change-of-state marker, not a pure past-tense marker.

In 大学毕业了, it indicates:

The event “graduate from college” has been completed.
There is a new situation now: she is no longer a student.

You can think of it as “has now graduated” rather than just “graduated (sometime in the past).”

Compare:

我姐姐大学毕业。 – This sounds incomplete or unusual on its own.
我姐姐大学毕业了。 – This is a natural sentence: She has graduated from college (now).

In Chinese, 了 usually marks completion or change, not simple past tense like -ed in English.

Why do we have both 已经 and 了 together? Isn’t that like saying “already” twice?

They work together, but they don’t simply repeat the same meaning.

已经 highlights the “already” / “by now” feeling.
了 marks completion/change of state of the verb phrase.

Pattern:

已经 + [verb phrase] + 了

So:

我姐姐已经大学毕业了。
= My older sister has already graduated from college (now).

You can say:

我姐姐大学毕业了。 (fine)
我姐姐已经大学毕业。 (usually sounds incomplete; you almost always want 了 here)

The most natural complete version with 已经 is with 了 at the end: 已经……了.

How does 大学毕业 work grammatically? Why is it 大学毕业, not 毕业大学?

In 大学毕业, 毕业 is the verb (“to graduate”), and 大学 functions like its object or complement:

Literally: “[from] university graduate” → “to graduate from university/college”.

In Chinese, some verb-object structures have a fixed word order:
[place/field] + 毕业, not 毕业 + [place/field].

Common patterns:

大学毕业 – graduate from university/college
高中毕业 – graduate from high school

If you want to make the “from” explicit, you can also say:

从大学毕业 – graduate from university
- 我姐姐已经从大学毕业了。

But 大学毕业 alone is already completely natural and common. Saying 毕业大学 is incorrect.

In English we say “graduate from college.” Where is the “from” in 大学毕业?

The idea of “from” is built into the structure 大学毕业.

In Chinese, many prepositions we express in English (from, to, at, in) are either:

implicit in the verb structure, or
expressed with a different preposition word.

So:

大学毕业 = “graduate from university/college”
You can make “from” explicit:
- 从大学毕业 – 从 means “from” in this context.

But native speakers very often just say 大学毕业, and listeners automatically understand it as “graduate from university/college.”

Why is there no pronoun in the second part: 现在在公司工作? Who is the subject?

The subject is still “my older sister”, carried over from the first clause.

Chinese often omits repeated subjects when it’s clear from context:

我姐姐已经大学毕业了，(她)现在在公司工作。
- Here 她 (“she”) is understood and can be omitted.

So the full idea is:

我姐姐已经大学毕业了，现在(她)在公司工作。
= My older sister has already graduated from university; now she works at a company.

You can repeat the subject:

我姐姐已经大学毕业了，现在我姐姐在公司工作。
我姐姐已经大学毕业了，现在她在公司工作。

They are correct but often sound a bit heavier or more emphatic than needed in normal conversation.

Why is there just a comma between the two parts instead of a word like “and”? How are the clauses connected?

In Chinese, it’s very common to simply put two related clauses side by side, separated by a comma, without using a connecting word like “and”.

我姐姐已经大学毕业了，现在在公司工作。
Literally: “My older sister already university graduate-le, now at company work.”

The logical relationship is understood as:

“After graduating / Since she has graduated, now she works at a company.”

You can add linking words if you want to be explicit:

我姐姐已经大学毕业了，然后现在在公司工作。 (then)
我姐姐已经大学毕业了，现在在公司工作。 (no connector, but natural)

Often, just using a comma + time word like 现在 (now) is enough for native speakers.

Should there be a measure word before 公司? Why is it not 在一个公司工作?

Both 在公司工作 and 在一个公司工作 are possible, but they feel different:

在公司工作 – “work at a company / the company” (general; type of place)
在一个公司工作 – “work at a company” (counting one company, slightly more specific)

In Chinese, when you talk about someone’s usual workplace in a general way, you often omit the measure word and article:

在学校上课 – attend class at school
在医院工作 – work at a hospital
在公司工作 – work at a company / in a company environment

If you want to emphasize one of several companies, or contrast with somewhere else, you might say:

她在一家大公司工作。 – She works at a big company.
(家 jiā is a common measure word for companies.)

So the sentence as given is natural and doesn’t need 一个.

Is 工作 a noun (“job”) or a verb (“to work”) here? How does 在公司工作 work structurally?

In 在公司工作, 工作 is a verb meaning “to work.”

The structure is:

在 + [place] + [verb]
在公司工作 → 在 (at) + 公司 (company) + 工作 (work)

So it literally means “work at a company.”

工作 can be both:

a verb: 我工作。 – I work.
a noun: 找到工作。 – to find a job.

Here, it’s clearly functioning as a verb.

Why is it 在公司工作 and not 工作在公司? Is 工作在公司 wrong?

The natural, standard pattern in Chinese is:

在 + place + [verb]

So:

在公司工作 – work at a company
在家学习 – study at home
在学校教书 – teach at school

Putting the place phrase after the verb (工作在公司) is not the usual word order and often sounds unnatural or poetic. You may see verb + 在 + place in limited patterns (e.g. with certain result complements), but for simple “do X at place Y,” you normally say:

在公司工作, not 工作在公司.

So 在公司工作 is the normal, conversational form.

Where is the tense in this sentence? How do we know it’s “has graduated / now works” and not something else?

Chinese generally does not use verb forms to mark tense the way English does. Instead, it uses:

context (like 现在 – now),
aspect markers (like 了), and
time words.

In the sentence:

已经 and 了 around 大学毕业 tell us the graduation is completed before now.
现在 before 在公司工作 tells us the working is happening now.

So we interpret:

已经大学毕业了 → has already graduated
现在在公司工作 → now works at a company

If we changed the time words, the tense-like meaning would change too:

我姐姐去年大学毕业了，现在在公司工作。
– She graduated last year, and now works at a company.

Can we change the word order of 已经? For example, can we say 我姐姐大学已经毕业了?

The most natural pattern is:

[Subject] + 已经 + [verb phrase] + 了

So:

我姐姐已经大学毕业了。 ✅ natural

Other placements are usually unnatural or wrong:

我姐姐大学已经毕业了。 ❌ sounds odd
我姐姐大学毕业已经了。 ❌ ungrammatical

You can sometimes move 已经 slightly, depending on the verb phrase, but for this sentence, the standard and natural form is:

我姐姐已经大学毕业了。

Think of 已经 as normally going after the subject and before the main action.