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- "我们几点有汉语课？"
"我们几点有汉语课？"
Translation:What time is our Chinese class?
21 Comments
This is even the more literal translation, and should be the "first" correct answer. You made this rimark 2 months ago ... your correct answer is still not implemented ...
To my mind "what time" ("几点") and "when" ("什么时候") should be distinguished from one another, as they are in Chinese, so I don't think "when" is quite right here.
You can probably get away with treating them as functionally equivalent. There may be some technical differences, but commentators disagree as to what they are. Also, there are regional preferences with respect to these terms and several other similar ones:
- https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/27700118/%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD-vs-%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87
- https://musingsatypical.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/why-are-there-so-many-versions-of-chinese-language/
- https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3677/%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87-vs-%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD-whats-the-difference
- https://www.italki.com/question/115248
- https://www.italki.com/question/135665
"When is our chinese class?" and "When is our chinese lesson?" should also be accepted, I think.
Just a quick advanced question... Why is there the 汉子 for 5 (五) in "语" from "汉语"? Is it because there were five dialects of Chinese, or.........? Essentially, is there an etymological explanation to this, or is it lost in history?
It's said to be a sound-meaning (also called "phono-semantic") compound, with "言" being semantic and "吾" being phonetic. However, the phonetic parts of many characters are more relevant to old or middle Chinese.
"吾" itself is also said to be phono-semantic, with "五" contributing the phonetic part, so there's some layering and arbitrariness, which is common.
In any event, tracing it back, it seems that "五" is a phonetic inclusion, and doesn't make a semantic contribution.
Wiktionary often has this sort of info.
