"昨天晚上他很晚睡觉。"
Translation:He went to sleep late last night.
23 Comments
If the correct translation is "He slept late last night," which is a weird thing to say, "last night he slept late" should also be an acceptable translation.
"He slept late last night" literally makes no sense in English. When you "sleep late" it means you get up later than usual. In English we would say he "went to sleep late" or more commonly, "went to bed late", because usually we are talking not about the hour someone actually fell asleep, but about the hour he went to bed.
In English "He slept late last night" sounds like somebody working the night shift usually sleeps in the day and gets up at night, but this night overslept. Definitely what the Chinese was trying to convey.
I got penalised 5 minutes ago for saying 'slept' instead of 'went to bed', now the opposite. I know that it's a beta, but at least be consistent.
i dont know whether "he fell asleep late" would be used in american english but that is what id say and i'd certainly never say "he slept late" to me that would mean he slept in, or that late last night he was already asleep
"He got to sleep very late last night" is also a correct translation, please add to your database. And yes, the English given here is a bit weird.
'Got to sleep' is debatable as it implies success, I'd say either 'went to sleep' or 'slept' would be fine.
This must depend on regional variations in English. It sound fine to me
"Last night he went to sleep very late" is also a correct translation, please add to your database.
1493
It seems that someone kept downvoting your comments because of “very” here. But in fact you are correct. 很 is indeed ambiguous here.
In mandarin you always use characters that describe the degree of an adjective before an adjective. Here 很 comes before 晚 because 晚 is an adjective to 睡觉.
"last night he slept late" should be equivalent to "he slept late last night"
"He was late sleeping last night." is a bit awkward English, but should be a valid answer.
This should really be "went to bed" rather than "went to sleep". Because we're not normally aware of when somebody or even ourselves actually fall asleep, which could be anywhere from the moment we get in bed to a couple of hours later.
"Went to sleep" is used for babies however.
Going to bed and going to sleep are distinct in English but I understand 睡觉 covers both.
