"我看见了你的孩子。"
Translation:I saw your child.
42 Comments
But is it an accurate translation? Or would that verb tense be done differently?
Yes it should, but in my opinion I would say that 我看见过你的孩子 would be a better way to say, "I have seen your child." It would depend on the context, though, of course. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
You're right. Having been learning British English for 25 years, my first translation, without context, will be 'I have seen your child', but well, this course translates to American English... It's still not accepted, though :-/
I'm not fluent so maybe someone else can weigh in too. 看 means to look at or watch something and is a continuous action like 看电影 or 看书. 见 means to meet like 我们见到 (we met). When you put them together, 看见 means you saw it but you dont see it anymore. 见 is a modifier here and tells you the action is not ongoing.
1502
Good. A correction: 看见 just means “to see”, same as 看到 and 见到. And 见 or 到 does not indicate the action is not ongoing, but indicates that something is achieved (and could be still ongoing).
In this case the "le" would be indicating that the action has finished, right?
- 1502
了 does explicitly indicates that the action (“see”) has been taken even without any context. We can have seen it but still be looking at it. The word “finished” or “done” can be misleading so I don't use it.
Also, some people may tell you the only correct translation for 看见了 is “have seen”, not “saw”. But I would say they can be both correct, or only one of them is correct for translation purpose depending on the context, i.e. there is not truly one-to-one literal translation between English and Chinese for this sentence.
Isn't this also the same as "I have seen your child"? Chinese doesn't differentiate between these kinds of past tenses
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Yes, you're right. Maybe the course contributors do not want to accept this answer before the word “已经 (already)” is taught, or before Duolingo can nicely suggest different translations in different lessons. Maybe we should report it.
I put "I saw your kid" but it marked it wrong. I figured kid/child wouldn't make a difference
Reported on March 5th 2018: "I have seen your children". Especially because another phrase (你的孩子在桌子下) marks you wrong if you say "child" instead of "children"! The answers should be consistent in singular/plural if there is no context, or accept both!
I don't have the answer but another question, sorry. Why do we need "了" it wasn't used in previous sentences and the translation was also "have seen" it is because in this case, the preferred translation is "saw"?
In this case it indicates that the action is not currently happening. That is usually how it functions when appearing directly after a verb such as 看见. Typically, any time you want to be clear that something happened in the past, you will use 了 or 过 after the verb, though neither necessitates past tense. If anyone else has thoughts, feel free to correct me.
Not that it is important, but as an American English speaker, maybe I can shed some light on why Duo wanted "saw" rather than "have seen." To me, "I have seen your child," sounds like you mean the same thing as, "I have seen your child before." "I saw your child," sounds more like you are talking about a specific time/place/event where you noticed my child. For instance, "I saw your child at school," would mean that the last time you were at the school you saw my child. "I have seen your child at school," would mean that you, at any ambiguous point in the past, have seen my child at school before. Additionally, I would say, "I saw your child yesterday," but never, "I have seen your child yesterday." In any case, this is all just pointless explanation. I'm not super sure on the British English rules with "saw" versus "have seen," but hopefully that shed some light on the situation.
Previously in the lesson, I saw the pattern " subject + 看见 + object +了." Why does the position of 了 change like this?
I really don't understand why both 见 and 了 are bot required to indicate past tense, despite some people pseudo-explaining it.
