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- "What is the teacher's last n…
"What is the teacher's last name?"
Translation:老师姓什么？
35 Comments
I also think there is a lack of grammar explanations. It is ok for the most part and sometimes the comments help out, but I gues youtube has to help with the rest.
It probably should be accepted.
When learning here it is good to look up examples in Pleco. I now realise 'shen me' can be used in a few different ways.
I think that 姓 is a verb here (to be surnamed) so that would probably rule out using another verb like 是 too
姓， which can also be said as 姓名, means name, so i think the appropriate word for "last name" should be 后名
Could someone please do me the favor of telling me why it is "teachers last name is what?" Instead of "what is the teachers last name?" Thanks!
I think that in Chinese the word that indicates it's a question usually comes at the end of the sentance
是 is used to indicate if something is a noun (object in a sentence). Since here noun is 'teacher's surname' is subject, 是 won't be used here.
If you said 老师贵姓？ It would be you're asking the teacher about his/her name. The given question is the situation where you're asking someone about the teacher's surname.
anyone know why " 马 '' isn't accepted here, but " 么 " is? They seem to have the same phonetic sound, but are represented by different characters, so I assume they are used in different gramamtic scenarios, or phrasal constructions idk.
First, I am a beginning Mandarin student, so please do not accept my answer as authoritative. However, it is my understanding that 吗 is used to turn a statement into a question, but it has to be a yes/no type of a question. For example, you could turn the statement, "The teacher's last name is Li (老师姓李)" into "Is the teacher's last name Li? (老师姓李吗？)“ with just the 吗 particle. However, for other types of questions you need other types of constructions. 什么 ("shén me") is a question word that means "what" so it is used for many open-ended questions. Also, as you may notice, they aren't phonetically identical. 吗 is "ma" and 么 is "me." Close, but not exactly the same. Hope that helps.
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I also wondered about that. Have started to put that at the end of a chinese question and now it is not there. All this is very confusing. I dont have a chinese keyboard either. Battling on!
Why isnt "de" after teacher? Doesnt adding "de" make it show ownership?
The last few questions are asking me to write in chines with no chinese keyboard, or are asking for Chinese translations of English that does not make sense. Getting frustrated here
