Learn Hardcore Chinese: wǒ běnlái bù xiǎng chūmén, dànshì tā yāoqǐng wǒ qù gōngyuán sànbù. - I originally didn’t want to go out, but she invited me to go for a walk in the park.

If you say 我不想出门, it’s a simple, neutral statement: I don’t want to go out.
With 本来, you add the idea that your attitude or plan changed later, which matches the second half of the sentence: but she invited me…

So yes, you can say 我不想出门, but you lose the nuance of “originally / at first”.

How do we know this sentence is talking about the past if there’s no past tense or 了 (le)?

Chinese doesn’t mark tense (past, present, future) the same way English does. Instead, it relies on:

Context
Time words (昨天, 以前, etc.)
Aspect particles like 了, 过, 着 (when needed)

In this sentence, 本来 and the conjunction 但是 suggest a change from an earlier intention to a later action, so it’s naturally understood as a past situation.

If you want to make the past time more explicit, you can add a time word:

昨天我本来不想出门，但是她邀请我去公园散步。
Yesterday I originally didn’t want to go out, but she invited me to go for a walk in the park.

Adding 了 is also possible in some positions, but it changes focus slightly (e.g. stressing the completed invitation), so it isn’t strictly required here.

What’s the difference between 不想出门 and something like 不想出去?

Both are common, but they focus slightly differently:

不想出门
Literally: don’t want to go out the door → don’t want to go out / leave home
It often suggests not wanting to leave the house or wherever “home/base” is.
不想出去
Literally: don’t want to go out (outward) → a bit more general don’t want to go out (from here to somewhere else).

In daily speech, they overlap a lot and are often interchangeable.
In this sentence, 出门 sounds natural because the contrast is with going out versus staying in.

Why is it 出门 (chūmén) and not just 出 (chū)?

出 by itself is a verb meaning to go out / to exit, but in natural speech you almost always pair it with something:

出门 – go out (of the door / out of the house)
出去 – go out (outwards, away from here)
出国 – go abroad
出城 – go out of the city

So 出门 is a set phrase that just means “go out (from home).”
Saying only 不想出 would sound incomplete and unnatural here.

How does 邀请 (yāoqǐng) work grammatically? Why is it 她邀请我去公园散步?

The basic pattern is:

邀请 + someone + do something

So:

她邀请我去公园散步。
= She invited me to go for a walk in the park.

Breakdown:

她 – she
邀请 – invite
我 – me
去公园散步 – go to the park (and) take a walk

You can replace the action part with other verbs:

她邀请我吃饭。 – She invited me (to) eat.
他们邀请我们参加比赛。 – They invited us to take part in the competition.

What’s the difference between 邀请 (yāoqǐng) and 请 (qǐng) “to invite”?

Both can mean to invite, but:

邀请 is more formal / written or sounds a bit more official or polite.
- 校长邀请家长参加会议。
请 is more everyday / colloquial and also means please.

In this sentence, you could also say:

但是她请我去公园散步。

That sounds a bit more casual. 邀请 is totally fine in spoken Chinese too; it just feels a touch more formal/polite.

Why is the order 去公园散步 and not 散步去公园?

The typical Chinese pattern is:

去 + place + (do something)
qù + location + verb

So:

去公园散步 = go to the park (and) walk
去学校上课 = go to school (and) attend class
去图书馆看书 = go to the library (and) read

Putting 散步 before 去公园 (散步去公园) is not how Mandarin normally structures this.
You can say 在公园散步 (“take a walk in the park”), but once you use 去, it leads the place:

去公园散步 – go to the park for a walk
在公园散步 – (already) in the park, taking a walk

Is 散步 (sànbù) a verb or a noun? Why isn’t there an extra word like “walk”?

散步 is a verb-object compound that functions as a single verb meaning to take a walk / to go for a walk.

散 – scatter, disperse
步 – steps

Together: 散步 = to walk (leisurely), to stroll.

You don’t add another object like 走路 after it; you just use 散步 itself:

我们在公园散步。 – We take a walk in the park.
饭后散散步。 – Take a little walk after the meal.

So there’s no separate “walk” noun here, because 散步 already expresses the whole idea.

Could I say 去公园走路 instead of 去公园散步? Is there a difference?

You can say 去公园走路, and people will understand you, but it’s less idiomatic for “go for a walk” as an activity.

Nuance:

散步 – specifically “take a walk / stroll” as a light, relaxing activity.
走路 – literally “walk on foot” (as opposed to using a vehicle); more about the mode of movement.

So for the idea in English “go for a walk in the park”, 散步 is the most natural choice:

去公园散步 – go to the park for a walk (for leisure).

Why do we need 去 (qù) here? Could we just say 她邀请我公园散步?

You cannot say 她邀请我公园散步; that’s ungrammatical. You need either:

a verb of movement (like 去)
or a preposition-like word (like 在) before the place word.

Correct options:

她邀请我去公园散步。 – She invited me to go to the park for a walk.
她邀请我在公园散步。 – She invited me to take a walk in the park. (focus on being in the park)

Without 去 or 在, 公园 is just sitting between verbs and feels like a missing link in the structure.

What’s the difference between 但是 (dànshì) and other words like 可是 (kěshì) or 不过 (búguò) for “but”?

All three can mean “but / however”, and in this sentence you could use any of them:

我本来不想出门，可是她邀请我去公园散步。
我本来不想出门，不过她邀请我去公园散步。

General feel:

但是 – slightly more neutral / formal, very common in both spoken and written Chinese.
可是 – more spoken, can sound a bit more emotional/subjective.
不过 – often like “however / though”, sometimes softer than a strong contrast.

For learners, treating them all as “but” is fine; the difference is mostly tone and formality.

Why is 我 repeated? Could we drop the second 我 in 她邀请我去公园散步?

In this sentence, 我 after 邀请 is the object of “invite”. You can’t drop it, because then we wouldn’t know who she invited.

她邀请我去公园散步。 – She invited me to go for a walk in the park.
她邀请她去公园散步。 – She invited her to go for a walk in the park.
她邀请他们去公园散步。 – She invited them…

If you remove 我, you get:

她邀请去公园散步。 – feels incomplete and unnatural; invite whom?

Chinese often drops pronouns when they’re obvious, but objects of verbs like 邀请 are usually kept if they are important to the meaning.

Where can 本来 (běnlái) appear in the sentence? Could I move it somewhere else?

本来 is an adverb of time/stance (“originally”) and usually appears before the main verb or verb phrase it modifies.

Most natural positions here:

我本来不想出门，但是她邀请我去公园散步。 ✅
本来我不想出门，但是她邀请我去公园散步。 ✅
(slight emphasis on “originally”)

Unnatural or wrong:

我不本来想出门。 ❌
我不想本来出门。 ❌

So you typically put 本来 near the beginning of the clause, in front of the verb phrase you’re modifying.