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- "他们在超市买米吗？"
"他们在超市买米吗？"
Translation:Do they buy rice at the supermarket?
31 Comments
I wrote 'Are they buying rice at the supermarket?' - I've suggested that my answer should be accepted as correct too, since Chinese doesn't use a continuous tense in the way that English does, but the present continuous English sentence seems more everyday and normal.
If I am not mistaken the present continuous in Chinese is formed with 在+verb, i.e. 他们在超市在买米吗?
You wouldn't say this in English, "do they..." Sounds like something you would say when you're gossiping
I disagree. You could use "do they" if you are asking if they buy rice at the supermarket as opposed to somewhere else they could buy it.
米 is uncooked/raw rice. 饭 is 1. boiled/cooked/prepared white rice. you can also say 米饭。 2. meal in general. 吃饭了吗？have you eaten meal? 饭 is breakfast, lunch, supper, dinner, anything is included. is it clear now?
Thank you for the explanation! I'm a bit confused on this question now, though. Are we really asking if they buy cooked rice at the supermarket? That seems like a strange thing to do
"Are they buying rice at the supermarket?" is marked as wrong, please fix.
It could as well be "in a supermarket" since Chinese has no definite articles.
Chinese doesn't really have tenses. I've never heard anyone say "他们在超市在买米吗?" That's technically incorrect and you'd only say the former.
I know 'at the supermarket' is the more likely translation, but 'in the supermarket' feels like it could be correct too, such as if you are standing in a parking lot and the supermarket is within sight, and you are asking somebody where some people you both know are...?
Am I right or is 'in the supermarket' simply no good?
is chinese flexible with word order? so is it possible to say 他们买米在超市吗？ Thank you-
the chinese characters for buy and for the word sell are very similar, but different. Their pronunciation also differs slightly in tonality. M'ai is sell, and has a little cross through a line above the flat line found in the other character, and mai, in third tone a, is to buy.
