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- "这里是你的家吗？"
"这里是你的家吗？"
Translation:Is this your home?
34 Comments
The sentence is using 这里 where I would expect to see 这个. Is 里 being used as a counter in the same way as 个? That would also explain the use of 是 rather than 在.
这里 = here (this place).
这个 = this one.
And just like English, "home" is an abstract location, rather than an item. (They sometimes seem to translate 家 as house, which is very bad).
The following sentences are valid:
这里是你的家吗？ Is here your home?
这个是你的房子吗？Is this your house?
你的家是这里吗？ Is your home here?
你的家在这里吗？ Is your home located here?
这里在你的家吗 is wrong. 在, as a verb, means "be located at". And "Is here located at your home" is also wrong in English.
I don't agree with the second, so called valid sentence.
It shouldn't be " is this your house" as it's implying that the house is seen and pointed at; however, the Chinese sentence uses " is... here ? " to imply a questioning of location where the house might not be seen or known..
Finally! We get to use 哪里 Nǎlǐ - Where; 这里 Zhèlǐ - Here; 那里 Nàlǐ - There
Literally the Chinese would be: "This place/here is your home, (question)?" In English we could say "is here your home?" But it's award to have "here" as the subject, we'd prefer "is your home here?" but that would be "你的家在这里吗?" So while it's not quite a direct translation, "is this your home?" is probably the closest way to say this while keeping the same subject-object relationship.
251
Mainland standard Mandarin is based on Beijing speech, and Beijing is crazy about 儿.
In central and southern China, 这里 is more widespread, and it's standard in Taiwan Mandarin (written 這裡 there). I bet they all got it from the older, Nanjing-based standard.
They have the same meaning. 这里 and 这儿 are synonyms.
There are other examples: 哪儿、哪里 or 那儿、那里
That's not correct English. You could say "Is your house here?" but that might not be the best translation of this sentence.
To be honest id rather listen to english translations that are correct in the foreign grammar rather than English grammar. It helps me get used to sentence construction
这里 does not mean this - the phrase translates as is your home here? 这是你的房子吗 is, is this your house.
- 766
"Is this your house here?" Why won't it take that for an answer? The question actually has 这里 in it which is 'here', your answer doesn't.
Can't we translate "jia" as "family"? "Jiaren" sounds more like "family member" for me.
@mornir - maybe. But given that we are trying to learn Mandarin and trying to associate word / phrase / sentences; it is not advisable to wrongly associate the given Chinese sentence with "Do you live here?" when there is no 住在 in the Chinese sentence.
@Willie - Why are you so surprised? Your question sounds like "This is your home? Really? A better way, I think, would be "Is this your home?"
Not a very common way to here this at all .这里 and 那里 is just not used in the sense but more so put at the end of the sentence to replace 吗. 你的家在这里 (here ) is used more then (there ) and (this) is used more then (that) .also they say it depends where you go in China which you will here more,这里 那里 or这儿 那儿 but i always here 这儿 and那儿 and they put it at the end .
@Reggie - if you replace 吗 with 这里 then you are changing the sentence from a question to a statement.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Confused.. 这 儿and 这里 before this lesson always meant here, and 这 by itself meant this. So consider this the translation should be something like: is our home here? Or without question : here is our home. I understand that the chinese sentence will look different in this case and 在 would be used in first one... But still... What is the rule makes 这里 to become " this" instead of “here"?
@Sky - read through other comments. Some excellent explanations.
But now I realise how confused English learners would be when they encounter sentences like "I have a cat" and "I have to go" and "I have a meal".
What does have exactly mean? Confusing... eh?
Yeah.. i always read all the comments before i write smth.. But probably i didn't get them, cause i still can understand this... :(
About "have" there is no confusion. If there is just have and a nout means you own smth. Have+to always means must to do smth. And here with chinese we have same two hierogliphs that began to mean different thing...
Read the comment by Celticfiddleguy one year ago.
You don't have confusion with "have"? "Have a meal" = Own a meal? Really? Good to know.
