"他们中午吃什么?"
Translation:What do they eat at noon?
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I think everyone who is going to learn Chinese should know this statement below:
凌晨:3:00--6:00 早晨:6:00---8:00 上午:8:00--11:00 中午:11:00--13:00 下午:13:00--17:00 傍晚:17:00--19:00 晚上:19:00--23:00 深夜:23:00--3:00
You should know that when the word "noon" is actually indicates the word "afternoon" and so it should mean 中午 in Chinese and not 下午 which that is the time when we eat lunch (午餐)
Personally, I think the word BRUNCH will be more accurate than the word LUNCH at the time 中午.
I think the point is to accept translations that convey the exact same meaning (that is, if you were to say that in English how would a native speaker say it) even if it's not the exact same literal word-by-word translation. At the end of the day people communicate using natural language, not odd sounding phrases.
1704
That is not correct. If the question asks about a past event, it would have been
他们中午吃 了 什么?
The question can alternatively be asking about a past habit in certain context. In that case we translate it to
What were they eating for lunch?
(Edit 2018.02.25) "What did they eat for lunch?" is acceptable when the question is about a past action only but not about its consequences.
859
So you're saying that it is actually mandatory after all to use 了 for all past actions in Chinese? Or just past questions?
1704
I was a bit hasty writing that. Often when we ask " What did they eat for lunch?" it is because something had happened (e.g. someone got food poisoning) or we suspect that they didn't eat or they didn't eat well. All these cases where we have concern about the consequence(s) of the action, we would use 了 to indicate a change of state - say, the eating action was done resulting in someone got poisoned.
Certainly that's not always the case. If someone asks this during a conversation about a past event and expects only a description of the action without concern on the consequences of the action, it is also applicable. You are right I had implied that 了 was mandatory, but that's not what I wanted to do. Thanks and I corrected the comment above by adding a footnote.
989
It's not specified that the meal is lunch. Lunch would be 午饭, and while that would be an understandable translation, it's not the literal one.
859
"They noon eat what" is also a literal translation. There's a reason literal translations are not always desirable. Do Chinese speakers actually say this Chinese sentence, and if they do what do they mean?
361
when i write "in the afternoon" it's wrong because it should be "at noon". And ‼️ when i write "at noon" duolingo says it should be "in the afternoon". ❤❤❤?
1704
We don't use tense in Chinese. The time of reference is derived from the context.
So if the context is not clear yet between the speakers, we add more information in the sentence. You would be saying something like What did they eat at noon at such time ?, What do they eat at noon today ?
1061
Maybe these people are on a weird schedule and every day at noon they eat a handful of Skittles for a snack. Maybe their lunch is at 3 pm. You can't just assume they are asking about lunch when asking what people eat at noon.
I think this sounds odd to native English speakers because it's floating in time. "What will they eat at noon?" "What did they eat at noon?" "What are they eating at noon?" Are all uncommon-sounding to my ear, but they sound better than the the translation in the example. This is because they are asking for information about a specific meal at a specific time.
"What do they eat at noon?" makes me want to answer with "food".
I think this is just a case of conventions in each language being in conflict. What sounds correct in English sounds awkward to Mandarin speakers and vice versa.
Also, we're used to the meals of the day. It's unusual to say "I'm having a noon meal", but it's not wrong.
Initially I understood the translation as "will they eat at noon", which sounds just fine to me, but that doesn't fit the context of the Mandarin translation.
That said, I think "what are they eating at noon" could/should be accepted...