Let's have a look at this sentence, supplied by a student: 小孩子们对天文都很有兴趣。 1. Could we have written 小孩子 instead of 小孩子们 ? 2. If both are possible, which difference does it make? Here are the answers. 1. Yes, we could have written 小孩子 instead of 小孩子们. 2. Basically, the meaning is the same. If you enjoy semantics, you could say that 小孩子... 都 is closer to "every child", while 小孩子们 ... 都 is closer to "all the children".

Here is the last episode of our series about the plural 们 in Chinese. If you haven't read the previous posts, just browse the thread. Last time we finished on a question: how can we express that we wish to invite Mr. Li and his family (his wife and children) to come over for dinner? Most of you answered correctly: (correct) 我们请李先生和他的家人来吃饭吧！ It may seem obvious to some of you, but certain languages use a plural with proper nouns when they refer to a group. (Think of 'The Simpsons' to refer to the family Simpson.) In Chinese, we don't use the plural 们 with proper nouns. There is an exception, though: when a proper noun is used figuratively to denote 'the people having such quality'. For example, 葛朗台们 (gělǎngtái men) is a literary way to refer to very stingy (吝啬) people. It is a reference to one of the main characters of a French novel by Honoré de Balzac -- Eugénie Grandet. In the novel, the father of Ms. Grandet hates spending money, even though he's extremely rich. He rarely heats the home, even in winter, just to avoid 'wasting' logs of wood. If you read about 葛朗台们 in an article, you can infer the author despises people like this. Normally, this use of 们 is derogatory, which means negative. However, it is sometimes used in a positive way, such as 雷锋们: 'the ones like Lei Feng'. Lei Feng was a soldier renowned for his bravery and dedication to a greater cause. He's still admired today. Whether a positive use of 们 is grammatically correct is still debated among experts. Just be aware that it exists. This concludes our series about the plural 们. Let me know in the comments if you enjoyed it, and if you learnt something new. Also, I'd be curious to know if your native language also uses proper nouns from literature or history to describe people with a typical attribute. That's part of what makes languages so interesting!