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- "我的老师去年在北京。"
"我的老师去年在北京。"
Translation:My teacher was in Beijing last year.
29 Comments
My teacher went to Beijing last year WRONG
My teacher was in Beijing last year RIGHT
Duolingo once again you've taught me less about Chinese and more about pedantic translation
Would this be considered a fault on Duo or is there another set of characters to denote went? Because for 'was in' we use 在, and have for a while. 在 is like a small swiss knife. It can be an adverb, preposition, or even a verb clause (which it is in this case, I think).
Yet 'went to' is a verb in past tense. So using the always correct google translator I get 去了 for 'went to'. Google spits out this thread's Chinese-English translation, but if you put 'went to' instead of 'was in' you get,"我的老师去年去了北京。" Not saying that it is right, but there is a difference.
@Meatsim - By that token "My teacher flew to Beijing on Cathay Pacific last year" should also be accepted. In the Chinese sentence there is no mention of "went", nor does it say how did the teacher go to Beijing. So both our answers should be accepted.
I believe these are different. If you wanted to indicate a past completed action - the going - in a contrast, I think using the particle 了is correct:
我的老师去年去了北京,昨天回來
However, the given text merely expresses a past /state of being/ -
我的老师去年在北京
and it's important to note that 去 there /is not/ the verb! I don't think you can use 了 with 在 though? (Unless you are dead... =) )
Of course I'm just learning, so please someone correct me if wrong!
Wait, day (Tian) uses Zuo and Ming, not Xia and Shang? And not Qu and Ming.
(Apologies, I can't type Hanzi or even pinyin with tones).
Why isn't it 在了? I got marked wrong for saying 在 instead of 会在 for "will be in" in another answer.
What about "My teachers were in Beijing last year?" Is there a grammatical reason why this was not accepted?
Why do you insist always on a specific order, even when, in English both word orders are absolutely correct and understandable?
Why only two word orders? Let's not insist only on the given words also.
Instead of last year "year gone by" or "past year" or "2019" or "an year before" "a year ago" etc etc.
Instead of "was, say "happened to be", "visited", "resided", "traveled to"... etc etc
Instead of my teacher "our teacher", "my tutor", "my school teacher", "my class teacher", "my maths teacher", "my English teacher"... etc etc
Then let's turn our attention to the famous and flexible word order you alluded to, and combine these into a few hundred thousand permutations.
"An year ago my tutor happened to be in Beijing"; " In Beijing visited our geography instructor in the year gone by";... ..... and so on and so on.
203
Actually, it's not grammatically incorrect, although most people would not say it that way most of the time. It is acceptable, though, and should be accepted by the bird.
How do we know it was last year? 去 means go, am I right, and 年 means year? Isn't there like a separate character for "last" to indicate that it happened last year, or do these characters mean "last year" when paired?
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Here, 去 indicates 'past' year (as in "the year is gone"). The verb of the sentence is 这 (to be at). That's my understanding, at least.
I typed that answer too but we are both wrong. The sentence should have zhu zai for it to translate to "live in." The sentence instead just uses zai (在) which is like a verb for "to be." Pleco translates it "to exist."
I think it should not be considered incorrect, because in English both word orders are correct and perfectly understandable
Duo should stop work in creating new Chinese content and spend more time in inventing complex ways of saying simpler things. "My teacher last year in Beijing was". "My teacher was last year in Beijing". "My teacher last year was in Beijing". "In Beijing was my teacher last year". "In Beijing last year was my teacher". "In Beijing last year my teacher was". "Last year in Beijing was my teacher". "Last year in Beijing my teacher was". "Last year my teacher was in Beijing". "My teacher in Beijing last year was". "Last year in Beijing was my teacher". "Three years before two years from now was in Beijing my teacher"........
.........
And so should Duo devote the next three years to solve this important problem of how differently can seven Billion people say this sentence.
