"他早上不喝茶。"
Translation:He does not drink tea in the morning.
109 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
I believe 他今天早上不喝茶了。means "He is not drinking tea this morning." (or "He is not going to drink tea this morning." or "He will not drink tea this morning.") and the information that this is a "new situation", ei he used to drink tea in the mornings but today he is not(/he won't.) To negate an action in past tense Chinese uses 没 not 不, so 不喝 cannot be past tense. However, since it is at the end of the sentence, 了 can indicate a "new situation" instead of a completed action.
He doesn't drink tea in the mornings: 他早上不喝茶。 However, this Chinese sentence is less specific than the English sentence, and could refer to a particular morning or to mornings in general. To specify all mornings or a general habit, you would add other words such as "all", "usually", etc.
He isn't drinking tea this morning: 他今天早上不喝茶。
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French speaker here... "on mornings" was rejected. Does it sound so terrible for a native English speaker? Isn't the same as "on Mondays"?
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It would be understood but no native speaker would say "on mornings". And some people will just say "in mornings". "On mondays" is still right.
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I'm sure this is a really dumb question, but I feel like I'm missing something fundamental. As far as I can tell, 早 means "morning" and 上 means "on top", or "above"... so why do we need both 早 上 together to mean "morning", when that seems to be already conveyed by 早 ?
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早 means the same thing. This may sound a bit odd though this is a common occurrence with some words in Chinese, but many words have abbreviations such as 早 for 早上, but you would usually just use 早上 anyway. Also, using 早 does not mean for certain that it will have the same 'feeling' as 早上. For example, you would say 早上好 for good morning, but you would never say 早好. However, you can just say 早.
The sentence is more of a general, He doesn't drink tea in the morning. Which is not the same as "this morning". It's more, as a general rule, he doesn't drink tea in the morning. That's because the lessons haven't begun teaching tense yet. So this statement, is just a general statement about a person's habit of not drinking tea in the morning.
The literal translation is as follows: "He morning no/not drink tea." To transform this statement into proper English, you can insert words which would not otherwise change the meaning of the sentence.
So words you can choose are, for example: "He [in the] morning[-time does] not drink tea." You can't say "this" because there is no "this" to translate. We didn't refer to a particular morning - just "the morning".
I'm confused here... I understand the meaning of each individual word here, but I don't know why in this instance "He did not drink tea this morning" is not correct while "he doesn't drink tea in the morning" is. Isn't the tense difference just contextual? Or would a word like 了 have to be inserted at some point to make it past tense?
How does one get the English translation of the new words as they are introduced? I can find them by hovering over the sentences for translation, but it would be useful to be able to learn the meaning when hearing the new sound and seeing its character. This is the first time the word 'morning' has appeared in English in this course.
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Just be patient and trust the method... it doesnt matter if you make mistakes... duo is about practice and trying
It's not a matter of a character just having one meaning. For instance, here's info on just 上 : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8A#Chinese
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Chinese doesn't use plurality like that. 早上 can mean both a singular and multiple mornings. In English, there is no plural form of morning that would work in such a sentence.
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Why "He doesn't drink tea in the morning" is wrong, if in the previous task “I'm" instead of "I am" caused no problem?