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Future and past tense in Mandarin Chinese | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Neil_UK Tetraglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5261 days ago 50 posts - 64 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto, Welsh Studies: Polish, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Scottish Gaelic, French | Message 1 of 4 29 June 2010 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi all, I'm new here and have been learning Mandarin Chinese for a few months. I have a question about the past and future tenses in Mandarin.
In English, we use 'going to' or 'will' to get into the future tense. In Mandarin, I've been told these phrases don't exist, you just use the time expression, for example 'I will eat tonight' would just be 'I tonight eat' (with mandarin word order). And for the past tense you just use the time expression, for example 'I was reading the book yesterday' would be 'I yesterday read book'. But is it really that simple? I have a feeling I'm missing something; are you telling me Mandarin doesn't use any words/phrases to get into the past/future tenses? Sorry if this is a basic question, but I can't find the info anywhere else. Thanks for your help. Edited by Neil_UK on 29 June 2010 at 10:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5668 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 4 29 June 2010 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes, to show the past tense in mandarin you can use a time expression, just as you did, or you can add a so-called aspect particle after a verb to express its completedness. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| indiana83 Groupie United States ipracticecanto.wordp Joined 5489 days ago 92 posts - 121 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Italian | Message 3 of 4 29 June 2010 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Many people will say "Chinese doesn't have grammar". It does have grammar, but this topic is what they are talking about.
The time phrase by itself is sufficient already. But if you want, you can add other words to the sentence to make it even more obvious, such as: 未 "not yet" 已經 "already" 將來 "in the future" 以前 "previously" All of these examples go right before the verb. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6049 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 4 of 4 30 June 2010 at 12:37am | IP Logged | ||
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You probably know, Mandarin has no tenses and you can't think in this way. To express future, past, present, you have to add certain aspect words. For example, for future can add 会，要，想，将来， etc, for past you can say 已经，过，了，来着，以前，过去，etc. Present you can add 现在，正，正在，在，呢，etc or different combinations of the above. Keep in mind natives will usually use certain ones in certain situations, so you have to have massive amounts of input to get a correct feel. Also, all of these aspect words have other usages.
For example, 我今晚吃饭。 I'm eating tonight. 我打算今晚吃饭。 I'm plan to/will/eat tonight. 我要今晚吃饭。 I'm going to eat tonight. 我想今晚吃饭. I would like/plan to/ will eat tonight. 我会今晚吃饭。 I'll probably/ will/ likely to/ eat tonight. 我将今晚吃饭 （ 将 is too formal and not really used like this) I shall eat tonight. These are rough translations. Basically, just memorize tons of sentences/copy natives and you'll be fine. Edited by irrationale on 30 June 2010 at 12:46am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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