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月 vs 月份 in Mandarin Chinese | ||
Tags: Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7084 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 7 23 May 2009 at 7:05pm | IP Logged |
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Hello all,
Can someone please clear up the distinction between saying 五月 or 六月 and 五月份 or 六月份？ My Chinese friends often tell me to add a "份 fen4" after the word "yue" when I am speaking, but I don't understand when/where to use it. Any help is appreciated! Alex 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 7 23 May 2009 at 7:49pm | IP Logged |
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I've only encountered the first one. Both of course mean "May", but you only get examples of usage for "五月":
http://dict.cn/%E4%BA%94%E6%9C%88.htm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7084 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 3 of 7 23 May 2009 at 7:58pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the link...it looks like examples 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8, 五月份 is used. I'm just not sure I understand what
makes those sentences different from 2, 3, and 4... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 7 23 May 2009 at 9:32pm | IP Logged |
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I don't have an answer but as this is fairly interesting I can ramble on about the subject a little anyway.
I have come across 月份 as an alternative to 月 once in a while but I haven't worried about it too much. I got the impression that 月份 was slightly more formal but it could be something I just imagined. As a foreign learner who doesn't always manage to get the tones right, and I guess that includes the vast majority of us, it can often be smart to use the longer variant of any given word if there is a choice, since it tends to slightly up your odds of being understood. Still, I'm not sure it applies in this case, considering the fourth-tone 月 is relatively easy to get right anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| speedcuber206 Diglot Newbie United States lingophiliac.com Joined 6097 days ago 25 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English*, Cantonese Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 5 of 7 24 May 2009 at 1:06am | IP Logged |
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From my understanding...
The two words can be used interchangeably and everyone will know what is being said. With that said though, there are subtle differences between the two words. However, these subleties are not too significant for a foreign learner. In fact, even as a native speaker of Cantonese, I cannot say that I can explain the differences. There are some cases when 月份 would be used as opposed to just 月, but one would be completely understood if they just used 月. I'm sorry that I cannot offer much explaination to help differentiate among the words. As I mentioned, even for myself, a speaker of Cantonese, the difference is too subtle for me to notice. With enough exposure to the language, a foreign learner should be able to recognize certain cases when a particular term is preferred over an other. I would like to comment though that based off of my own understanding, the difference has little to do with formality. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7084 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 6 of 7 24 May 2009 at 5:00am | IP Logged |
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Thank you all for your feedback!
Based on feedback from my Chinese friends (ie, their telling me I got it wrong...), it seems that yuefen is almost always the preferred form when used in a sentence. eg, "I am going to graduate in May." The "yue" form is just the name of the month used in dates and in counting. For example, "The fifth month of the year is May." I posted this question today at WordReference's forums at the following link: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1410353 The reply seemed pretty clear: 八月， 五月。。。 These are the names of the months: August, May 八月份 means "in August， during the month of August He also said that in sentences like "During the month of August" if you specify the "bayue" with a "deshihou" it is not necessary to use fen: 八月的时候 is just as valid as 八月份. This explanation is completely consistent with everything I've heard Chinese people say, but it makes you wonder: isn't this a pretty big part of Chinese grammar that grammar books and textbooks have been skimming over? I feel like it's a pretty big distinction... Any input? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5765 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 7 of 7 25 May 2009 at 2:29pm | IP Logged |
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By May, we would have completed the project.
五月份，我们应该就能搞定这个project了。 flowers blooming in May 在五月开放的花 (but I would say also 五月份开的花, a heck less poetical) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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