Advanced Topic Fronting
Moving elements to sentence-initial position for emphasis or topic establishment
Pattern
Topic (fronted element), Subject + Verb + ...
Explanation
Chinese is a topic-prominent language, meaning elements can be moved to the front of a sentence to establish what the sentence is about. At the advanced level, this includes fronting objects, time phrases, and even entire clauses for discourse coherence.
Advanced topic fronting differs from basic word order changes in that the fronted element often has no grammatical marker connecting it to the rest of the sentence. Context and pragmatics determine the relationship. This is common in both spoken and written Chinese.
Examples
这件事，我已经跟他说过了。
Zhè jiàn shì, wǒ yǐjīng gēn tā shuō guò le.
This matter, I have already told him about it.
中文，他学了三年了。
Zhōngwén, tā xué le sān nián le.
Chinese, he has been studying it for three years.
那家餐厅，菜好吃，服务也不错。
Nà jiā cāntīng, cài hǎochī, fúwù yě búcuò.
That restaurant, the food is delicious and the service is good too.
Common Mistakes
关于这件事我已经说过了他。
这件事，我已经跟他说过了。
Topic fronting in Chinese does not require 关于 in most cases. Simply place the topic at the beginning with a natural pause (comma).
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