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Michel Thomas Mandarin question | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Bucknaked Newbie Australia Joined 5014 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes | Message 1 of 6 24 September 2010 at 7:03am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hello, working may way though the beginners 8 disc course, really enjoying it, I'm also doing a weekly 2 hr course in Melbourne
On the 5th disc [I think] they pose the question "where in England do you live?" Which I swapped around to read "you live in England where? why was the correct sentence "at England you live where?" I thought the given rule was Who, When, How and What ni zhu zai ying guo nar There a few times I've worded things differently, I'm picking that like English there are a few ways of structuring the same sentence?? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 6971 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 2 of 6 25 September 2010 at 3:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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In general, the location usually precedes the verb in Mandarin.
e.g., wo zai tabei guo du liu nian. 我在台北过度六年。 http://www.learnchineseeveryday.com/2009/11/14/chinese-sente nce-structure-and-word- order- iv/ This website has an explanation and some examples. edit: to fix link Edited by seldnar on 28 September 2010 at 8:22am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bucknaked Newbie Australia Joined 5014 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes | Message 3 of 6 27 September 2010 at 7:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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OK thanks, nice link [thought it was broken but there is a space in "sentence"]
Pity I thought I was getting a good understanding of it all and now it’s more complicated!!! Looking at your link, like I said there appears to be several ways of wording the same sentence much like in English They gave us 2 options Every day I run to school or I every day run to school, both of which would be understood So I'm assuming that my original sentence would still be understood Edited by Bucknaked on 27 September 2010 at 7:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5850 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 4 of 6 27 September 2010 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
There is a slight problem with mnemonics like that -- they confuse "who" with "who?", "when" with "when?" and so on. You're sentence has "where"=in England + "where?". Because you're thing in strict terms of who-when-how-what, you're looking at the word "where?" and thinking of that as "where", and so you think "in England" has to go in that position. "Where" is a location, but "where?" is like a question mark. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| seldnar Senior Member United States Joined 6971 days ago 189 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, French, Greek | Message 5 of 6 27 September 2010 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Your sentence would be understood, but it wouldn't be how a native speaker would say it.
There's a great resource for sentences in Chinese called Juuku http://jukuu.com/index.php It is a corpus of Chinese sentences. You can type your sentence into the search box and see if it comes up. Cainntear's explanation is good at identifying what went wrong in the sentece. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5850 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 6 27 September 2010 at 10:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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