So I’ve been reading a book on the Phonology of Mandarin, and I found a cool section with some rules on when to choose disyllabic or monosyllabic words, something many beginners struggle with and most natives don’t know why one is right or wrong. BUT! I found some rules to help you out: Explanation: Mandarin has phrase-level stress and metrical requirements that dictate word choice. Examples: When there is a verb and an object, If you want to say “I plant garlic”, there are 3 good ways to say this, and one poor; of course these rules are in general, and there could be cases where this won’t hold true. When you have a verb and its object, you can pick from the following three choices 我种植大蒜 (2 syllable verb, 2 syllable object) 我种大蒜 (1 syllable verb, 2 syllable object) 我种蒜 (1 and 1) However, the final combination leads to a poor sounding phrase in mandarin 我种植蒜 (2 and 1 is poor) Similarly, in noun modifier + noun phrases, the opposite is true. If we want to say, “I go to the coal store”, 1 and 2 syllables will be the form that sounds the worst. The three best choices are: 我去煤炭商店 (2 and 2) 我去煤炭店 (2 and 1) 我去煤店 (1 and 1) But this time, 1 and 2 is poor: 我去煤商店 (1 and 2 is poor) Hope this helps! Source: the Phonology of Standard Chinese, 2nd Ed., San Duanmu