"请问,你是李老师吗?"
Translation:Excuse me, are you Teacher Li?
42 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
904
Traditional Chinese: 請問,你是李老師嗎?
請問here literally means "may I ask". Excuse me in this translation showing politely, but the meaning of ask is not shown in this text.
I learnt traditional chinese too but I think people here to learn chinese have enough to do with the simplified logograms ;-)
My daughter has chinese course in her school. Of course, I would like her to know the traditional writing but I m happy if she only knows the simplified one because she's been making great effort to memorize and mostly she writes with pinyin.
803
Then it should also be translated to Ms. Li and Mrs. Li too. How do you know Teacher Li is male?
934
Chinese is notoriously short of surnames, so there is a tendency, I believe, to refer to people by their profession or some other characteristic.
It's true, and I think that too. Buuuuut, I've seen this a lot is comment sections saying that duo is just using their country's language. But just hover your mouse or tap your finger on a word that you're not sure, and it will tell you the English translation of it. If you're just not sure. I usually hover my mouse over words like teacher, doctor, men, women and so on. So if you're ever having trouble, just tap of hover over the word! :D
@duovivo - Elizabeth Li and millions of female teachers would take serious offence at your translation, I'm sure. And what is also interesting is that English does naturally allow Dr. Li, Judge Li, Professor Li, Inspector Li, Detective Li, President Li and so on, but discriminates against teachers for some reason.
Well, it does distinguish between an ordinary Mr Li as opposed to Teacher Li. Li is a common Chinese last name and maybe adding 'Teacher' helps others understand what Teacher Li's job is. Hope this helps. Ambereen
In chinese community, we use "surname+(job, seniority or other)position" to call someone with respect. Sir is not used because it will translate to 先生 in chinese, which didn't mention his position as teacher. If you call someone 先生, it is in the situation when you don't know much about him, like stranger.
194
This course is taught in pinyin, so it should be Li. Lee is a common spelling in Korean and Cantonese. Other countries, such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan dont use pinyin (hence Bruce Lee (李), whose parents were from Hong Kong and spoke Cantonese)
194
Hong Kong doesnt use pinyin. But this course does. If you want to spell it Lee, you should learn Cantonese
In English, title comes before name. Many here say that "Teacher Li" sounds awkward in English, but we are here to learn Mandarin, in which 李老师 is, indeed, the correct order. In English, titles precede names: Mr. Li, Professor Li, Miss Li, Sir Lancelot, Officer Cresap, President Sanders, Captain Crunch, Queen Bee, King Kong, and so forth.
If it helps, think of it as "Li, Ph.D.," "Julius Hibbert, MD," or "Magnum, PI."
1657
I typed in: 请问, 你是李老师吗?But I was marked incorrect.
Why? The only difference I can see is maybe an extra space between the two phrases.
Is that really enough to be marked wrong? What is wrong with this course?
特别如果李老师是你的老师,可是我们不知道是谁问这个问题。可能李老师的老板问,或者李老师的同志,或者一位警察。
Especially if Li is your teacher, but we do not know who is asking the question; maybe, Li's boss (the Principal) is asking, or Li's coworker (perhaps another teacher senior to Li), or a police officer. I think it's fine to use "nin" rather than "ni" here, but "ni" is acceptable, depending on the context.
Maybe because Chinese places words in a different order than English, so this may be a strange context and make the comment a bit harder to understand.
106
I wrote "Excuse me, are you Li Laoshi?" I think that this would be correct because it would sound too unnatural to say "Teacher Li", and "Mr. Li" would be too generic; You have to specify what the person's occupation is in Chinese. Also, 李老师 could be a woman or a man, and the gender isn‘t stated. I think that the best way to write it would be to put in the 拼音 for 老师.