"When do they go to school?"
Translation:他们什么时候去学校？
20 Comments
544
A different opinion here...
上学 is already a verb by itself and it already means "go to school". Adding 去 is not really necessary. Compare the result by replacing 去上学/go to school with 去吃午饭/go to have lunch.
Yes, you can also say 去上学. FYI, 什么时候 can be replaced by 何时 if you want to sound formal (I'm a native speaker).
Shouldn't it be acceptable to also put "shenme shihou" first and "tamen" second?
- 544
It is also possible, but which order is more natural depends on the context.
BTW may I ask if this word order thing about time is confusing for learners? I have seen this question being answered and asked many times.
I think people get confused because it's inconsistently enforced by Duolingo
Yes! Very confusing and frustrating. There seems to be no rule at all. Flip a coin
- 544
There are rules, but they are not difficult. Just Duolingo is not delivering them well enough.
Basically the time can be put at 2 places, either at the very beginning of the sentence, or before the verb (and before other adverbial phrases, if any). It is certainly not more difficult than many other languages.
Yes , it is confusing for beginners. The inconsistency of marking answers as correct based on where the 'time' words are placed, does not help.
Thank you for helping clarify the rules.
Sometimes "when" is first, sometimes subject first. Is there a rule? Do i flip a coin?
什么时候他们去上学 I really get frustrated with how DuoLingo is so inconsistent about where it wants its time versus subject.
Since 上学 means "go to school" already, really wonder why we still need 去 here?
- 544
It is a bit Cantonesish for me but I have seen Duo using 几点 quite a lot. So it should be acceptable.
- 544
上课 would be referring to starting a lesson, it is not a perfect synonym of 上学.
