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- "I play soccer for two hours …
"I play soccer for two hours every Friday."
Translation:每星期五我踢两个小时的足球。
22 Comments
Can someone who is a native speaker/well versed in knowledge of when and when not to use "的" answer this?
Is my answer of "我每星期五两个小时踢足球。" correct? Or do I NEED a ”的“ in the sentence?
If you want to omit ”的“ you can say “我每星期五踢足球两个小時” . Just make sure you keep the period of time (how long) after the verb(踢).
That's a pretty big question, but I'll do my best to help. I'm not a native speaker, but I will link to some resources that I've found helpful:
Expressing Time
If you're wondering about the use of "的" specific to this particular sentence pattern (i.e. expressing time duration of a verb), here is an article from MandarinFriend.wordpress.com.
Other Uses of 的"
But "的" has many other functions and appears in many sentence patterns. So if you're asking about ANY possible time to use "的", here is an article and a video that summarize the "de" particles.
Or if anyone out there is a huge grammar-nerd (like me), there are over a dozen articles on ChineseGrammarWiki, which cover the many of patterns that require our little "的" friend!
No you dont need a 的 but your sentence is still incorrect. You need the verb before the time.
Could someone explain when da and ti should be used? They don't seem to be interchangeable. Thanks!
One is for games played with your feet (ti) and one is for games played with your hands (da)
You're mixing time point (WHEN, 每星期五) with tine duration (HOW LONG 两个小时). These are grammatically separate concepts and must be handled differently. See discussion and helpful links above.
I translated it as "我每星期五踢足球提的两个小时". It was reported as incorrect, but don't understand why. The correct answer was: "每星期五我踢两个小时的足球".
The simple answer is that you can't use 的 before a time duration like that. For more details, see links above.
Someone said ti (踢) is for sports played with hands and da (打) for sports played with feet. Then why are they using ti (踢) for soccer.
They said it backwards. echineselearning.com says, "In English, you say “play football” and “play basketball,” but in Chinese it is 踢足球 (tī zúqiú) and 打篮球 (dǎ lánqiú). Usually, the sports you play with your feet use the verb 踢 (tī), and sports you play with your hands use 打 (dǎ), such as: 打羽毛球 (dǎ yǔmáoqiú), “to play badminton, ” or 打网球 (dǎ wǎngqiú), “to play tennis.”
Adverbial phrases and subjects are interchangeable in Chinese. I am tired of choosing one order and having it marked wrong, then choosing the other order in another sentence and having THAT marked wrong. Then sometimes both are marked right. PLEASE BE CONSISTENT.
