wǒ gěi jǐngchá dǎdiànhuà.

Here 给 does not mean the main verb to give. It introduces the person receiving the action, so it works a lot like to in English.

In this sentence, the pattern is:

我 + 给 + 警察 + 打电话
= I + to the police + make a phone call

So 给警察打电话 means to call the police.

Yes, 打 often means hit, but in many common Chinese expressions it has extended meanings.

打电话 is a fixed expression meaning to make a phone call / to call. You should learn it as one common verb phrase, not by translating each character literally every time.

Some similar expressions are:

打字 = type
打车 = take a taxi / hail a taxi

So here 打电话 simply means call by phone.

Mandarin often puts the recipient or target of an action before the main verb phrase.

A very common pattern is:

Subject + 给 + person + verb phrase

So:

我给警察打电话
literally looks like I to the police make a call

That is normal Chinese word order.

You can also hear:

我打电话给警察

This is also natural, but 给警察打电话 is extremely common and very standard.

No. 我打电话警察 is not natural Chinese.

If you want to say who you are calling, you normally need a connector such as 给:

我给警察打电话 = I call the police
我打电话给警察 = I call the police

So 给 is important in this sentence structure.

It can mean either, depending on context.

Mandarin nouns usually do not show singular or plural the way English does. So 警察 can refer to:

• a police officer
• police officers
• the police

If you want to make one police officer explicit, you can say:

一个警察

If the context is emergency-related, 给警察打电话 is often understood as call the police.

Because Mandarin does not have articles like a, an, and the.

Whether something is definite or indefinite is usually understood from context, or shown in other ways.

For example:

警察 = police / a police officer / the police
这个警察 = this police officer
那些警察 = those police officers

So in 我给警察打电话, there is no missing word. The sentence is already complete.

It is a verb-object compound, so it can often be separated.

For example:

我给警察打了电话。 = I called the police.
我给警察打一个电话。 = I’ll make a call to the police.
我在给警察打电话。 = I’m calling the police.

This is very common in Chinese: a verb-object expression acts like one unit in meaning, but grammar can still go inside it.

The basic sentence 我给警察打电话 is neutral by itself. Time is often understood from context.

If you want to be more specific:

我给警察打了电话。
= I called the police.
Here 了 shows the action is completed.

我在给警察打电话。
= I’m calling the police.
Here 在 shows the action is in progress.

So the base sentence is flexible, and context matters a lot in Chinese.

A natural pronunciation is:

wǒ gěi jǐngchá dǎ diànhuà

A few pronunciation points:

• 我 = wǒ
• 给 = gěi
• 警察 = jǐngchá
• 打电话 = dǎ diànhuà

Pay special attention to:

• 警察: the second syllable is chá, not a neutral syllable
• 电话: both syllables are fourth tone and fourth tone: diàn-huà

In normal speech, the whole sentence flows together smoothly, but the tones are still important.

In this sentence, 给 is functioning like a preposition or coverb, introducing the recipient of the phone call.

So the main action is:

打电话 = make a phone call

And 给警察 tells you to whom the call is made.

But in other sentences, 给 can be a full verb meaning give:

我给他一本书。
= I give him a book.

So 给 can play different roles depending on the sentence.