"They are all sleeping in the room."

Translation: 他们都在房间里睡觉。

[cwmccabeMD]

Native or advanced speakers, does it also make sense to drop the 里 and just say the following? 他们都在房间睡觉。 Isn't it ok to let the 里 be implied?

[PeaceJoyPancakes]

I probably qualify only as an (upper?) intermediate speaker, and I would certainly defer to native speakers, but to me "在房间" without "里" sounds like something you could say if you wanted to say that someone was at the (hotel) room as opposed to somewhere else, without necessarily needing to specify that they were inside of it.

I think "in  the room" is generally better translated using "里". It may not be strictly necessary in this instance, but it sounds better to me.

[FrankLobo22]

I did it, and was accepted

[Dalton132]

Can you say? 他们都睡觉在房间里。

[Ao7t3]

sorry, no

[sac80]

Can anyone explain why this version is not possible? It seems like there is some sort of rule dictating that 睡觉 must be at the end of this sentence, but Duo doesn't explain or model it. Thanks!

[PeaceJoyPancakes]

For most verbs, and all verb-object compounds (such as "睡觉") as far as I'm aware, the adverbial location phrase precedes the verb.

There are a limited number of verbs for which the adverbial "在" phrase can come after the verb as a sort of complement. I don't know of any such verbs that are composed of two characters or more.

These exceptions to the general rule are "坐", "放", "住", "站", "待", etc., which I call "verbs of positioning". However, this exception is subject to any modification of the verb's aspect, and thus you get "他住在中国" (simple indicative aspect) but "他在中国住过" (past aspect).

[Starbornx]

Is 在房间里他们都睡觉 wrong?

[PeaceJoyPancakes]

The emphasis is weird. It's like "in the room, they are all sleeping" or "those who are in the room are all sleeping", instead of "they are all sleeping in the room".

[PeaceJoyPancakes]

"他们都在屋子里睡着" is accepted, which is remarkable for a number of reasons.

"他们都在房间里睡着" is also accepted.

[pistachiopanda]

Its shui jiao but why does the pinyin say shui jue

[PeaceJoyPancakes]

It's a mistake. This "jiào" and the "jué" that means "to feel" use the same character.

[MalieP]

Is 他们在房间里都睡觉 correct?

[Rumactree]

I think the 都 needs to be right next to the 他们 (all of them).

[Letlotlo]

Can you replace 睡觉 and房间 to write 他们都在睡觉房间？

[PeaceJoyPancakes]

No, it's not grammatical. It would be equivalent to saying "They are all currently sleeping the room".

[MonsieurWHA]

Here is a really good explanation for 在 + Location+ 上 / 下 / 里 / 旁边

https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_location_with_%22zai...shang/xia/_li%22

[PeaceJoyPancakes]

Here, this version of the link works:

• https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_location_with_%22zai..._shang_/_xia_/_li%22

And if that fails in the future because of some change to markdown encoding, try clicking here (but no future-proof guarantee here either).

[Charlie298884]

Doesn't quite work...

Try https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar
and then search for "Expressing location with zai...

[porphyroq]

How would one construct this with 来