mandarin tense question?
Friday, July 22nd, 2011 at
1:13 am
how do you state a continuous action?
I know the following:
Ta pai zhoapian means ‘he takes pictures’
Ta pai le zhaopian means ‘he took pictures’
how do I say ‘he’s taking pictures’ ?
also, I’m confused over when to use ‘shi… de’ when talking about the past. Is that like the use of ‘am’,’ are’ or ‘ was’ in english?
Tagged with: continuous action
Filed under: Learn to Speak Mandarin
ta zai pai zhao-pian
or
ta pai-zhe zhao-pian
Hi, I Wisemancumth. I’m Jennifer, a full time Chinese teacher from Beijing China.
As for how to state a continuous action, we use the Chinese words “正在 (zhènɡzài)” which means “in the process of doing something.” For example:
Tā zhènɡzài pāizhào.
他正在拍照。
He is taking pictures.
Tā zhènɡzài chī wǎnfàn.
她正在吃晚饭。
She is having the supper.
By the way, you may take a free Chinese lesson with native Chinese teacher to learn more and get free advice on Chinese learning:
https://www.echineselearning.com/free-trial/index.html?ecl=ptEEEEEEyh0712042.
Please feel free to contact me at Jennifer.zhu@echineselearning.com if you still got any Chinese related questions, and I’m always happy to hear from you.
"he’s taking pictures" in Chinese should be "Ta zheng zai pai zhaopian"
If you want to say something happened, in Chinese, they’d like to say "Ta dangshi zhengzai zuo shi"
If you want to learn more, maybe my teacher Mr. Wang can help you.