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Posts: 2536

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Q: Are tenses even relevant in Chinese?

I am not teacher and only know survival Mandarin 普通话.

 

But from what I have experienced with multiple translation apps and web sites is this is something I believe does not exist in the Chinese language (at least in translation).

 

I want to believe I am wrong and I am asking people who really know.

11 years 22 weeks ago in  Teaching & Learning - China

 
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Posts: 131

Governor

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Yeah, but i dunno.

 

I'm going to Beijing would be Wo qu Beijing.

I went to Beijing would be Wo qu le Beijing.

 

 

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11 years 22 weeks ago
 
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  Yeh, there are parts of speech in Chinese used to give time definitions like 'le' which can be used to express something that has happened or the finished past or 'guo' which is similar to the present perfect in terms of talking about experience. Mostly you need to put things into context using a time reference like yesterday or tomorrow. I'm pretty much completely self taught though and my level is still relatively elementary, so i'm sure someone else could add a little more clarity to the answer of your question than I just have. I wouldn't be disappointed though, it's actually a simpler system of language in terms of learning tense expression. Measure words on the other hand are a headache: where we have nothing more than 'a/an' or 'the' to learn, the Chinese have a host of different words necessary to use in defining the article of which you are speaking.

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11 years 22 weeks ago
 
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Dude as said above, Mandarin does not have an expression for "tenses" as we do have in English.  Auxiliary like did or will just do not exist, and according to my GF, you add a time reference to indicate when the action took, takes, or will take place.

 

As an example, and even if it is written in English, this is how Mandarin indicates tenses.

 

Past : Yesterday I go to store.

Present: I go to store

Future: Tomorrow go to store.

 

And yes, there are words in Mandarin to express actions in the past as indicated already, like le or guo, and a few more depending on geographical area.  But normally in every day speech they are not so frequently used as a time frame indication of when it took or will take place.

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11 years 22 weeks ago
 
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Shifu

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they do but they are very simple, but everyone takes short cuts when speaking mandarin and dont bother with a full sentence 

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11 years 22 weeks ago
 
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The verbs themselves do not change tense. The verbs are never conjugated or changed in any way. That's why you use other time words to give it the proper tense.

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11 years 22 weeks ago
 
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