"明天星期几？"
Translation:What day is it tomorrow?
53 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
oh it's day as in the week day not week as in which week number.... this makes much more sense now. Have a belated lingot or two.
I can confirm that I answered "What day is tomorrow?" and it was accepted. [23 DEC 2017]
1965
Good question! The fact that you have a 几 tells you that it is a question, so you don't need anything else.
Every where other than duolingo where I've tried to look this sentence up it always includes the word "是," as in 明天是星期几。Would any native or fluent Mandarin speakers care to comment on whether the word "是" is required here or not? And why or why not? 谢谢您！
- 505
Native speaker here (albeit I learned traditional and not simplified Chinese, and also I speak Cantonese and not Mandarin but that doesn’t make a difference here)
是 is not needed here but it doesn’t make it incorrect to use it. I couldn’t explain exactly why but whenever we talk about time or dates we never need 是. My best guess is that 是 is used for objects, or things that exist rigidly, where as times and dates are not such. Don’t quote me on this though.
This changes however if you’re talking about something that occurs on that time or date, for example, 今天是我的生日 (“Today is my birthday”) or 三點是放學時間 (3 o’ clock is when school is out).
I think overall it’s a matter of what sounds natural which is also perhaps why it isn’t used. Using 是 for time and date sounds weird to me. Even in Cantonese where 是 becomes 係 to mean “is/to be” it still sounds weird to say it when talking about time and date.
Looking at the available tiles I got it right, but translating, "tomorrow week what", which the hover gave me, would have left me with no chance otherwise. Since what is being asked is what day of the week, how does that translation mean what it does ?
This is a case where each word does not directly translate to the English equivalent. The hover only translates word by word, not the whole phrase. So yes, those words do mean tomorrow week what, but taken together it does mean 'What day is tomorrow'. I am not a fluent speaker but I have been learning Chinese for many years (before using Duolingo to practice) and what might help you is to think about 星期几 as a unit rather than separate words. Taken on their own they are separate words, but in this case, 几 is replacing the 一，二，三，四，五 （from the names of the days of the week). Clarifying which day of the week it is. Does this help any? Any native speakers, please feel free to come on and correct me if I have led this person astray.
1st does 几 work like 多少 to mean how many and are they both valid here ?
2nd when i put 星 in google translate it show me that it means star, and 期 means period, can someone explain to me the logic of how this word is composed ?
- 505
Hi, native Chinese speaker here.
几 tends to be more general of a measure question. Roughly, it means “how” in reference to another adjective, like how high (几高), how big (几大), how much (几多). More properly, 多少 is asking “is it a lot or a little” much like when you say 是不是 it’s quite literally asking “is it or is it not?” which is just another way to frame the question “is it?”
星期 the phrase comes from a historical definition for a week in reference to the lunar calendar. The seven days of the week referred to the seven celestial bodies in our solar system that we knew of by the time Chinese was around: 日，月，火星，水星，木星，金星，土星 which refer to the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn in that order, Sunday being the first day of the week. As for why they were named as such is beyond my knowledge but it’s basically explained in deeper Chinese astrology.
The Chinese question is so much clearer. In English, is not clear if the questioner would like an answer of Friday (for example) or December 27th (for example).
Well, I study Japanese and Chinese In this duolingo app. But when I see this sentences, Japanese(明日は何曜日ですか) Are more free then Chinese(明天星期几) to translate to English. Why I can't put "Tomorrow" first in Chinese-English, But I Can put it in Japanese-English. Even through it's was 100% same meaning. Tomorrow, What day is it?(ノ_<。)うっうっうっ
- 505
Because that’s not how grammar works linguistically. English and Chinese are SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) order languages, and Japanese is SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) order. While that doesn’t necessarily indicate anything for this specific sentence, sentence structure is certainly important in any language. Yes there are ways to manipulate the sentence order but then it would take on different meanings however subtle. In English, it’s called passive voice. Example: “I gave you a book.” vs. “A book was given to you by me.” The sentences say the same thing but the emphases are different. Same goes for Japanese and Chinese. So in theory, yes in English you could say “Tomorrow is what day?” but the equivalent in Chinese would also be to switch the sentence around: 「星期几啊，明天？」(You have to add the 啊 because of this emphasis I’m talking about.) In each of the questions phrased this way there is more emphasis on tomorrow being the day you are talking about, as opposed to the original sentences having emphasis on the question of “what day” it is.
I hope this clarifies; I am a native Chinese speaker so I can give this example for Chinese but I don’t know Japanese grammar so I can’t speak to how they would restructure their sentence for the same emphasis.
Well, Thanks Miss. For Explain this. But in Japanese, You can put word "Tomorrow" in the first and the last too, when translate to english, So It's not a problem in Japanese. And I know English and Mandarin SVO, but Japanese SOV. Well, let's review this sentences again "明天星期几" 明天=Tomorrow 星期几=What day is it. So, it's should work too in Chinese. "Tomorrow, What day is it" same as English Grammer, but Duolingo Doesn't allow it. So it's must "What day is it Tomorrow"(ノT_T)
- 505
As I said, you can do that but it would mean something different. 明天星期几 translates to "What day [of the week] is it tomorrow" whereas 星期几啊，明天 translates to "Tomorrow, what day is it" because of the emphasis.
I grew up speaking Chinese and English so I am native to speaking both languages. Japanese, I cannot speak for.
I think, what day of the week is tomorrow. is more correct and should be accepted
- 435
明天 tomorrow 星期 day of the week 几 What number Answer (as an example) 星期三 Weekday 3 / Wednesday
Whats the point of the questions in which we speak the audio? It marks it correct no matter what. It's told me I was correct before i finished speaking once.
Really? I only get it right when the answer is only one word. But my translation is always correct as I've checked afterwards. I don't know about you though. It might be different.
I wrote what date is tomorrow, or Tomorrow is what date? Shouldn't that be accepted?
- 1353
I don't know why but in one of the tests when 几 was by itself and not in a sentence, it sounded like jī instead of jǐ...
I'm confused, if 明天 is tomorrow, which of the other characters mean day?
I don't see the character that specifies day except for the one with the other character that means tomorrow?
