"我只是随便看看。"
Translation:I am just looking.
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Or, I'll just look around a bit. Duolingo lacks flexibility with its English language answers. You will find that they don't fix things when you try to help them. It's frustrating to have a heart taken away, but it's easy to get them back by doing review, which is good in itself, and also do you have an extra points.
Yeah, you could say 我只是看看 or 我随便看看, sometimes you'll also see/hear 而已 (ér yǐ), which means something like "that's all":
我只是随便看看而已
I'm just looking, that's all.
I guess you'll hear er yi from the older generation, or maybe even from what literary types remain. It's classical Chinese.
Why is 是 used here rather than 在? I though that 在 was always used to describe a continuous action like this, not 是.
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是 is not used instead of 在 here, but belongs to 只: 只是 means "only" or "just" and is a synonyme of 只.
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In Chinese you don't use an explicit continuous marker to say this. If you did it would sound a bit like "I'm in the process of looking" in English, grammatical but odd.
But beyond that I can't decode the whole sentence. It would be good to hear from a Chinese native speaker.
I thought 在 was the particle used for present continuous, too. Maybe we'll learn it in next levels, I hope.
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It is a particle used for the present continuous.
There's nothing about languages that says there is only ever allowed to be one particle for one job. If "will" is the particle used for the future tense in English, then what's "shall"? And "going to" and "gonna"?
Chinese is no different. One word or particle can have one or more than one meaning or function. One grammatical function can be achieved by one or more than one word or particle.
That sounds well. But, what particles are used for present continuous in chinese? 在, 是, another one? Are those perfectly interchangeable? Or when do you use 在 and 是? Thanks.
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在 and 着 are the two main particles for the continuous. Note also that it's not compulsory to indicate the continuous at all in Chinese and it might only be used for emphasis. This article might interest you: https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_actions_in_progress_(full_form)
是 means "is", "are", "be".
My understanding that "是"in the sentence is a (be form )verb (am/are/is). "在" is more similar to a verb meaning existence (at/in) following preposition of place used in present continuous tense.
Native speaker here (long time expat though): I would use 在(doing) or more explicitly 正在. 在 also has the meaning of to be when referring to locations and location-related metaphors, while 是 in this use case would be unusual for me because it is more used to refer to being certain things. ie. I am a doctor 我是医生, I am superman: 我是超人. There might be regional differences idk about though
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Because many Chinese words are made up of two characters, and some are even two of the same character. 看看 means something like "take a look", "having a look". I'm not sure if it would still mean the same thing with only one 看 but maybe a native speaker could help?
My chinese teacher told us that repeating a verb is like it will take a short time: 看看 would mean something like "take a look for a second!". Let me check if I find something out there. Ah, here it is: https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Reduplication_of_verbs
Repeating a verb is like saying you're doing a little bit of something casual. In other words, it's a way of saying you're casually doing something.
We may have borrowed this phrase into English--to have a "look-see."
Native speaker: You don't really, it just defines the tone. 1 is a bit more curt.
I put "I'm just browsing", which is a common way of saying this in the UK/Australia/NZ, but marked wrong
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Can this only be interpreted as present (continuous)? I tried "I just took a look" and was marked wrong but told "I'm just taking a look" would be correct.
Reported 'I am just taking a look' 1/12/17 ('Having a look' already accepted)
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'I am only just looking.' I have never heard but I would interpret it to mean I have only just started looking
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Something like that. Otherwise it is redundant, like "I am only only looking". I actually think the second meaning is what's intended here, which is not good English. "I am only looking" or "I am just looking" are either one more correct to say in English.
"I'll just take a look' is something an English speaker might actually say, unlike the 'correct' answer
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Does the presence of shi in this sentence indicate that somehow ”sui bian kan kan” is like a noun of some sort? I am ”somebody who is just looking” ?
No, it's just part of the word 只是.
Think about 还是 in, say, 你要看书还是去电影院？ "Do you want to read, or go to the movie theater?" 是 is just part of the word, it doesn't mean 去 is a noun now.
I selected the boxes:"I am just looking anywhere"
With "zhi shi" and "kan kan" you already have the "just" and "looking (a bit)". Then you get an added "sui bian" which seems to add even more lack of direction to the looking, so I picked "anywhere" from the choice boxes, but it was marked wrong. The tips at the beginning of the lesson also give "however" as a meaning for "sui bian". Oh well.
Good comments. It's obvious that nobody at DL reads these discussions of the students. Remember, report your answers when you feel it's justified.
The Chinese literally reads: ' I only am as I wish looking '. Yes, many answers in this discussion could apply. In fact, ' Wo kan yi kan ' could simply be used for, " I am just looking ". As was said in this discussion, DL needs to be more flexible in accepting English translations. If you feel your answer should be accepted, report it. Hopefully, they critically evaluate the reports.
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To indicate that the action is done for a short period of time. Search for answers towards the top from HippieTrail, Panchete1, and others to N. Mai's similar question.
I just have a look rejected. I'm not an English native speaker, but I think to have a look is correct in English, isn't it?
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"have a look" is good English, but in this case you'd want to say "I'm just having a look." "I just have a look" sounds like something you do habitually, not something you're doing right now.
".. am casually looking" AND "... am just looking"; if your program doesn't recognize these two as same please fix it; it is an inadequate teaching tool!
I believe it describes more the way I'm looking, rather than where I'm looking, so "as I like, as I please, as I see fit", or "casually, carelessly". So you might say I'm just casually looking around", or "I'm just randomly looking" -- I don't have a clear goal or specific thing in mind that I want to buy -- just looking around.
