"他早上不喝茶。"
Translation:He does not drink tea in the morning.
70 Comments
Not always.. depends on context and intended delivery of communication...
Also she morning no drink tea, if we're just considering the audio. But 她 isn't accepted as the first character in the listening version, for whatever reason, and there's no way to report "my answer should be accepted" for the listening problem.
time adverbs always come second in chinese
that is not how it works in english
the chinese is fine
Why is "He didn't drink tea in the morning" wrong? Would it have to have a time like 今天？
"He didn't drink tea in the morning" is past tense. "He does not drink tea in the morning" is present continuous.
You've written it in past tense. The sentence is in present tense, and doesn't refer to a specific time like when using "今天" If you wanted to say "He didn't drink tea this morning", you would say "他今天早上不喝茶了。"
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.
The Chinese here is in present tense rather than past.
Question to everyone: How do you distinguish "He doesn't drink tea in the mornings" from "He isn't drinking tea this morning"? Both are versions of present tense, and Chinese doesn't have the same tense structure as English, right?
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。
"He didn't drink" is past tense, this sentence is present. Don't know how to make past tense in Chinese though.
1498
This sentence does not indicate the tense, just a very general sentence. With different context it can happen in the past, present or future. I guess once Duolingo added this translation, this translation would be provided before the past tense is taught. (shrug)
This is also my answer and it's wrong. Maybe there's gotta be some word to describe whether an event is a daily activity or something in the past.
Learning Chinese I am finding issues with my English. Is this a correct translation or even phrase? "He does not drink tea during 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?
The sentence, verbatim, translates as:
他 = He 早上 = morning 不 = no/not 喝 = drink 茶 = tea。
So I'm confused as to why you think this is past tense.
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.
- 1498
It is a possible translation when given the question “Was he drinking tea in the morning?” But Duolingo may want to develop a mechanism to gradually teach this knowledge so that beginners are not confused early on in this course. More: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/25227041$comment_id=25762327
"Was he drinking tea in the morning?" Is wrong, because to make this statement a question you would have to add a question particle (嗎-ma) to the end of the statement, or say something like "喝不喝“ instead of just "喝“. The way this statement is worded, it's not a question, as far as I understand it.
- 1498
Oh, right… I mean this Chinese sentence can be a response to the question “他早上(这个时间 at this time)在喝茶吗？Was he drinking tea in the morning?” and his translation is then correct.
Update: If OP was asking whether 他早上不喝茶 can mean “he is not going to drink tea in this morning”, that's valid too.
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.
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
Can it be both "in the morning" (today, for instance) and "in the mornings" (on a regular basis)? Which is the way to know which one is it in Chinese? Thanks!
- 282
I wrote "he doesn't drink tea during the morning" and got it wrong. Instead, it wants "in the morning."
French speaker here... "on mornings" was rejected. Does it sound so terrible for a native English speaker? Isn't the same as "on Mondays"?
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.
It's rong because your spot's to say he does not drink tea in the morning
Is 早上 plural so that it means morningS? Do we have plural for morning in english?
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.
Why is "He does not drink tea in morning" wrong? Just because the article 'the' is not included??
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 ?
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 question was type what you hear. There is NO audible distinction between He/She/It, so when I gave the answer, She instead, that should also be correct.
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".
Is "in the morning" meant in a general sense? If so, how does one refer to more specific times like yesterday morning or this morning?
Just tried it and it didn't work but it seems the most literal translation?
Does that sound like a propper translation to you? In English the time stands at the beginning or end of the sentence. In Chinese it stands before the verb or at the beginning as far as I know. Different languages have different word order rules (and as a general rule Chinese word order is less flexible because Chinese has no infections. So the word order often specifies their relationship to the other words in the sentence)
Dont literally translate sentences. By doing so sometimes it wont make sense in English. Look at Jessica's post below for the sentence structure in Mandarin
