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- "他们今天五点放学。"
"他们今天五点放学。"
Translation:They finish school at 5 today.
30 Comments
39
I translated it as "they end school at 5 today" and i thought it should be correct since "end" and "finish" are both grammatically correct and they both are similar in meaning.
If the speaker says this earlier than the time, it should have a 'future' nuance like 'they are going to finish' or 'they will'. The future nuance translation should not be "wrong". Some sentences accept future nuance (I don't say 'future tense' because both 'will' an 'is going to' are grammatically present tense: English does not have real 'future tense'), while some sentences do not --- quite inconsistent, while Chinese sentences only show 'time words' like today and tomorrow without any verb marker (conjugation) other than 了, I guess....
549
English lets you use present if a time is given to refer to things in the future. Same as "I go to work at 7 tomorrow".