We hate to break the news, but your Chinese teachers have been lying to you. And not just one of them, but the entire teaching establishment from Professor Wang down. You see, remember in freshman year when your teacher told you to negate verbs in Chinese by sticking 不 in front of them in the present tense and 没 in front of them in the past tense. They may have been following orders, but they left something out. Something sinister and unpredictable and crazy....

Today is the day this conspiracy ends, as we break the silence with a lesson on one of the most bizarre verbs to grace the Chinese language. Because - yes - there is actually a verb out there you can negate with 没 in the present tense and 不 in the past tense (or vice versa). And once you know? We encourage you to be insufferably pedantic and bring this up every chance you get.