Learn Hardcore Chinese: wǒ zài fángjiān lǐ tīngbùjiàn wàimiàn de rén shuōhuà. - When I’m in my room, I can’t hear the people outside talking.

Structure: 我(Subject) + 在(Verb) + 房间里(Location) + 听不见…(Rest of predicate)
There is no separate “be” verb like English am or is. 在 already covers the idea of being (located) somewhere.

So you do not say something like 我是在房间里… for the neutral version.
我在房间里… is the normal, basic way to say I am in the room… in this context.

Why do we say 房间里 (fángjiān lǐ) instead of just 房间 (fángjiān)? What does 里 (lǐ) add?

房间 means room.
里 means inside / within.

在房间里 = in(side) the room (emphasizes being inside the room)
在房间 is also possible and often used, but 在房间里 is even more explicit and very natural when you mean inside the room as a space.

You can think of:

在房间里 ≈ inside the room
在房间 ≈ at / in the room (slightly less explicit about “inside,” but usually understood the same here)

In everyday speech, 在房间 and 在房间里 are both acceptable; 里 just makes the interior aspect more explicit.

Why is the location phrase ordered as 我在房间里听不见… and not something like 我房间里在听不见…? Is the word order fixed?

The normal pattern for location in Mandarin is:

Subject + 在 + Place + Verb Phrase

So you get:

我在房间里听不见外面的人说话。
I
- be-at
  - in the room
    - cannot hear…

You cannot move 在 away from the place like 我房间里在听不见…; that is ungrammatical.

However, you can move the whole location phrase to the front for emphasis:

在房间里，我听不见外面的人说话。
(In the room, I can’t hear the people outside speaking.)

This is still correct but changes the focus slightly (emphasizing in the room).

What exactly is 听不见 (tīngbùjiàn / tīngbújiàn) doing grammatically? Why is 不 in the middle?

听不见 is a verb + potential complement structure:

听 = to listen / to hear
见 = to perceive / to catch (with the senses)
听见 = to (manage to) hear, to catch the sound
听不见 = cannot hear / fail to hear (it doesn’t reach your perception)

So the pattern is:

Verb + 不 + Resultative/Directional Complement

This pattern expresses inability or failure to achieve the result:

看见 = to see; 看不见 = cannot see
听见 = to hear; 听不见 = cannot hear

So 听不见 does not mean “refuse to listen.” It means you try / would listen, but you are unable to hear (too quiet, too far, too noisy, etc.).

What is the difference between 听不见 (tīngbùjiàn) and 听不到 (tīngbùdào)? Could I say 我在房间里听不到外面的人说话?

Both are common and both are acceptable in this sentence.

听见 / 听到 both mean to hear, with slightly different focuses:
- 听见 focuses on the perception (“I caught the sound”).
- 听到 focuses on the result of the action reaching you (“the sound reached me”).
听不见 and 听不到 both mean can’t hear, but there is a small nuance:
- 听不见: usually emphasizes your ear / perception side – “my ears cannot catch it.”
- 听不到: often emphasizes the sound doesn’t reach here (too far, blocked, etc.).

In most everyday contexts, especially here, you can use either:

我在房间里听不见外面的人说话。
我在房间里听不到外面的人说话。

Both are natural and both mean I can’t hear the people outside talking.

What exactly does 外面 (wàimiàn) mean here? Outside the room? Outside the building? Outside in general?

外面 literally means outside. It does not specify exactly outside what; that is understood from context.

Because the sentence starts with 在房间里 (in the room), the natural interpretation is:

外面的人 = the people outside (the room)

If the broader context were about a whole building or house, it could also be:

the people outside the building / outside the house

Mandarin often leaves this underspecified; your listener infers it from the situation.

Why do we need 的 (de) in 外面的人 (wàimiàn de rén)? Could I just say 外面人?

的 here links a modifier to the noun it describes:

外面 = outside
外面的人 = the people who are outside / the people outside

The general pattern is:

[Modifier] + 的 + [Noun]

So:

外面的 + 人 = the people (who are) outside

You can sometimes hear 外面人 in very colloquial speech, but:

It sounds more dialectal / casual.
It is less standard than 外面的人.

For clear, standard Mandarin, especially for learners, use 外面的人.

Why is there no plural marker like 们 (men) on 人? Why not 外面的人们?

In Mandarin:

人 by itself can mean person or people, depending on context.
们 is not a general plural marker like English -s; you mostly see it with:
- pronouns (我们, 你们, 他们)
- some specific groups (同学们, 孩子们) when they are specific, known groups.

Here, 外面的人 means the people outside in a general, non‑specific way. Using 人们 here would sound either literary or oddly emphatic.

So:

外面的人 = the people outside (normal, natural)
外面的人们 = sounds stylistic / literary / unusual in this everyday context

That’s why the sentence uses 人, not 人们.

Why is 说话 (shuōhuà) used instead of just 说 (shuō)?

说话 and 说 are related but not identical:

说话 is an intransitive verb: to speak / to talk
- Used when you focus on the act of speaking itself, not on what is being said.
说 often needs content after it (what is said) or an object:
- 说中文 (speak Chinese)
- 说这件事 (talk about this matter)
- 对他说明白 (explain clearly to him)

In 听不见外面的人说话:

The focus is simply hearing people talking, not the specific words.
So 说话 (“to speak / to talk”) is more natural.

You could say:

听不见外面的人在说什么 = can’t hear what the people outside are saying

Here 说什么 has content (什么, “what”), so 说 (not 说话) is used.

How do we parse the phrase 外面的人说话 at the end? Is it a clause “the people outside speak” or a noun phrase “the talking of the people outside”?

Syntactically, 外面的人说话 is the object of 听不见:

听不见 [外面的人说话]

Inside that object:

外面的人 = the people outside
说话 = (are) speaking / talking

You can think of it in two equivalent ways:

As “the people outside speaking” (a situation / activity you cannot hear), or
As “the talking done by the people outside”.

Chinese does not need a relative pronoun like who here; it simply puts 外面的人 before 说话, and the relationship is understood from context and verb type.

There is no tense marker like “am / was / will be” in the Chinese sentence. How do we know if it means I can’t hear (now) or I couldn’t hear (earlier)?

Mandarin usually does not mark tense the way English does. The bare form of the verb often covers:

present (general or right now)
past (if the context is clearly past)
sometimes future (with time words)

So:

我在房间里听不见外面的人说话。

can mean:

Right now: “When I am in the room, I can’t hear the people outside talking.”
In the past (recounting a situation): “When I was in the room, I couldn’t hear the people outside talking.”

Context or added time words clarify it:

刚才我在房间里听不见外面的人说话。
Just now, I couldn’t hear the people outside talking.
以后我在房间里可能听不见外面的人说话。
In the future, I might not be able to hear the people outside talking.

The verb form stays the same; time is shown by adverbs, time phrases, or aspect markers, not by conjugation.

Can I move parts of the sentence around, like saying 外面的人说话我在房间里听不见 instead?

Yes, you can front the thing you can’t hear for emphasis:

外面的人说话，我在房间里听不见。

This is grammatical and natural. It emphasizes the talking outside as the topic:

外面的人说话 (as for the people outside talking), 我在房间里听不见 (I can’t hear it from inside the room).

So you have at least these natural orders:

我在房间里听不见外面的人说话。 (neutral, subject first)
在房间里，我听不见外面的人说话。 (emphasizes being in the room)
外面的人说话，我在房间里听不见。 (emphasizes the outside talking as the topic)

But you cannot scramble the smaller pieces arbitrarily (e.g. 我听不见在房间里外面的人说话 is wrong).

How should 听不见 be pronounced in terms of tones? Is 不 4th tone or 2nd tone here?

In isolation:

不 is 4th tone: bù.

But 不 has a tone sandhi rule:

Before another 4th tone, 不 is usually pronounced with 2nd tone: bú.

Since 见 (jiàn) is 4th tone, the natural spoken form is:

听不见 → tīng bú jiàn

When written with tone marks, many learning materials still show 不 as bù (its underlying tone), but in actual speech, you should say bú here.

So:

Pinyin in dictionaries: tīng bù jiàn
Real spoken tones: tīng bú jiàn (1–2–4 tones)