"我上个周末见了女朋友。"
Translation:I saw my girlfriend last weekend.
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I'm not clear on how we know from this sentence that 'I saw MY girlfriend last weekend' as opposed to simply 'I saw A girlfriend last weekend.'
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Saying “girlfriend” only makes sense in the context of a relation with somebody else. Otherwise it would be just a “woman” or a “girl” (similar to how the word “mother” only makes sense in relation to a child). So actually I can’t imagine any situation where I would say “I saw a girlfriend” without mention of whose girlfriend it is. But that other person is not stated here, so we have to infer it from context. And that defaults to the speaker themselves being that other person (compare English: “I saw mom today”. You infer from context that it’s “my mom”).
The only other possibility I can think of is if there is a context where the speaker is already talking about a certain couple but doesn’t refer to them by name. Then they might say the above sentence and mean “I saw the girlfriend [i.e. the one I have been talking about]”. But outside of such special contexts, my interpretation would be that the speaker is talking about their girlfriend.
I wouldn't say that is a special context, for me it is the first thing that comes to mind: "Does your friend have a girlfriend now?" - "Yes, I met the girlfriend last weekend."
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This reasoning pays tribute to the prejudice of monogamy; there could be more than one girlfriend, "i met one of my girlfriends" is a safer translation.
because there is a 'wo' there. if it was 'i saw a girlfriend' there wouldn't be a 'wo'
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"Last weekend I met my girlfriend." is a correct solution for this sentence! It is a problem that now arbitrally the Duolingo accepts or "saw" or "meet" for "ren", but both are correct ...
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Well in English you can use "meet" in the way of "Where do you want to meet?" and it doesn't mean to get to know someone for the first time, it means where do you want to see each other. I think that is the way they mean "meet" when you click on 见.
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I think it can be both because theres that 我很高兴认识你 that's like "nice to meet you," but then there's 我认识他 that's like "I know him." Or maybe it can translate to "I have met him" too?
I agree. In fact when you move the cursor to check the meaning of jian, the 1st definition is meet, 2nd definition is see. But the 1st meaning is wrong?
Think of it this way: "jian" in "zai jian" is like saying "see you later." See would be "jian" in this case, and zai jian is a very common term, so I think that see should be the first definition.
I was a little confused on the use of 了 as it came up as a new character for me. In reading up on what a perfective does to a verb I'm still a little hazy, but it seems to modify the verb 见 to indicate that it happened in the past. Is that correct?
You are close. "了" indicates completion of an action, or aspect, but not tense. It can be used to talk about action that will happen in the future, too. For example, "你到了告诉我" meaning "tell me when you have arrived." In this sentence, "了" talks about an future action.
Yep! Can modify any verb to mean it has been completed. Not technically a tense though.
Actually the sentence is incomplete. For a good guide on "le 了" see chinesepod's "how to use 了，" https://youtu.be/JjAGEjr6-kY
'le' is used indicate that an action has been completed. So yes you are correct. (Apologies for using roman script, I don't have the Chinese keyboard set up)
I think "le" is a past tense particle, so yeah, it does make "jian" saw instead of see.
You are correct. Adding 了 (le) after most verbs in Chinese puts them into the past tense.
This is inconsistent with the comments above. le does not put most or any verbs into past tense. It says that an action is completed. It is also used to say something will be completed in the future. This is explained better by others above.
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obviously the person is talking about his girlfriend， if he was talking about someone else's girlfriend he would've said：我上个周末见了他的女朋友 - I saw his girlfriend (or 他女朋友，both are correct)
I did a pretty funny mistake, I wrote :
"I saw my grilfriend last week-end"
Is a girlfriend also a gril-friend ?
That's because see, as in visit, is 见了 (in the past). And meet, as in the first time, it would be 认识.
It is not necessary, just like you would say 'I saw mom yesterday', you would refer to that it's 'my mom'
I'm confused as to why '了' would be needed when other sentences in Chinese seem to do just fine without tense indicators. Can you (for example) explain the difference between the exercise's use of 了 and: 昨天我去医院 Doesn't "yesterday" imply past tense?
Without "me" it'd only say I see my girlfriend last weekend. So to indicate that an action (in this case 'seeing my girlfriend') completed and therefore in past tense, you've got to add "le". Hope this helps!
Is there a way to know that the sentence does not mean "I saw my girlfriends last weekend."?
Yes, there is. If you wanted to say girlfriends, it would mostly be 女朋友们。 The 'men' makes the singular word plural.
上个 is last, and 下个 is next. Something I'm not sure of though, is that it seems once combined with time periods instead of days/dates "last year" is 去年， and next year 明年 - but this interpretation breaks down. Some advice on this would be nice.
last, next and this change for days, weeks, years. I had it all written down in my notebook in the trunk of my car. Thieves broke into my car and left my trumpet and other valuable stuff. They stole my laptop and Chinese study notebook. It's been a few years. Perhaps the thieves now speak Mandarin and have a better life. :)
Can someone clear on how to say "meet, met" in chinese? Does 见 (jiàn) mean "see" only or it can also mean "meet"?
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Why is "I have seen my girlfriend lazt weekend" wrong? It's just a past participle of " I saw my girlfriend last weekend ".
I wrote "I met up with my girlfriend last weekend" and got it wrong, is my Chinese at fault here
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"I saw my girlfriend at the weekend" should be allowed, as in English that it means "last weekend". In fact in UK English it is the standard expression.