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- "What are you writing?"
"What are you writing?"
Translation:你在写什么？
13 Comments
Adding a "在" gives the present continuous tense of the sentence. "你写什么" would translate among the lines of "What do you write".
517
How frequently do native speakers omit 在 when indicating that an action is occurring? Do people make sure to use it in formal writing, but frequently omit it in casual speech, or something else?
- 36
It is not grammatically correct if you want to show that the action is taking place right now though. As it is, 'writing'
在 gives the continuous conotation "你写什么?" sounds more like "what do you write?" to me.
I'm kinda confused on when its appropriate to use 在, like does it indicate you're in the process of doing something? Why can't you just use the sentence without it in this example?
- 320
"What are you writing?" is not equal to "What do you write?" The first can refer to the book that you are writing little by little over the course of 15 years. The second refers to me writing this very words right now, in order to explain the issue if the "IN".
If we can agree on that, then let's continue with the given frase: "What are you writing"? Our example verb is "to write".
In Chinese, you would say: What are you IN (THE PROCESS OF) to write? Or, word by word: What are you IN to write?
They can not add an "ing", to have "writing", or rather "写ing". So the workaround is to ad "在"/"IN", to indicate that you are IN THE PROCESS of writing.
Hope that helps.
really? I didn't know 吗 was needed along with 什么 or other question words
