Chinese negation

Some ways to express negation in Chinese:

• 没 (méi) = used mainly before the modal verb 有 ("to have")
  • (not to be confused with 没 (mò) which means "drown")
• 不 (bu) = used before most verbs, as in:
  • 我不写中文 (I [do not] write Chinese [words])
  • 他不用拼音 (He [does not] use Pinyin)
• 否 (fǒu) = "not", for Classical Chinese and certain set phrases, similar to "nay" in English
  • 不置可否 (not put yea nay = "to decline to comment")
• 免 (miǎn) = “non-”
  • 免费 (no cost = "free of charge")
• 無 [traditional] / 无 [simplified] (wu) = "not"
  • for literary language and certain set phrases
• 别 (bié) = "do not" (imperative), as in:
  • 别在餐厅看书! ("do not read [books] in the restaurant!")
• 勿 (wù) = "do not" (imperative, formal)
  • used in signs in China, forbidding the reader to do something
  • rarely used in spoken Mandarin