jīntiān gōngyuán lǐ rén hěn shǎo.

very

Breakdown of jīntiān gōngyuán lǐ rén hěn shǎo.

• 人rén: person
• 今天jīntiān: today
• 公园gōngyuán: park

Questions & Answers about jīntiān gōngyuán lǐ rén hěn shǎo.

What is the basic structure of 今天 公园里 人 很少?

A helpful way to see it is:

今天 = today
公园里 = in the park
人 = people
很少 = few / not many

So the structure is basically:

time + place/topic + noun + adjective/comment

More naturally:

As for today, in the park, people are few.

This is a very common Mandarin pattern. Chinese often sets the scene first, then gives the comment.

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Why is 今天 at the beginning?

今天 is a time word, and time words often come near the beginning of a Chinese sentence.

So 今天公园里人很少 sounds very natural:
Today, there are few people in the park.

You can also move time words in some cases, but putting them early is one of the most common patterns in Mandarin.

For example:

今天我很忙。 = Today I’m very busy.
明天他不来。 = Tomorrow he isn’t coming.

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What does 里 mean in 公园里?