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- "It was one year ago that she…
"It was one year ago that she went to Beijing."
Translation:她是一年前去北京的。
34 Comments
191
Anybody feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that would mean "She went to Beijing a year ago," which is different than "It was one year ago that she went to Beijing." Both include the basic idea of her going to Beijing a year ago, but we would (or at least I would) use the different structures in different situations; the focus is different.
You are supposed to report that to Duolingo, not post it in the comments section.
This alters the meaning: It would mean that she is Beijing (notwithstanding that 去 needs an object).
- 1163
If I hadn't stumbled across this website, I would probably think Desmond1132's suggestion was completely wrong.
clause + 的 + noun
Finally, we'll have a look at a slightly more complicated 的 grammar structure. Because 的 can be used to attach pretty much anything to anything else, you can use it to link entire phrases to things. The phrase then becomes a description or quality.
我买的茶 / wǒ mǎi de chá / the tea I bought
...you can attach quite complicated things to a noun using 的. That whole complex phrase just becomes an attribute of the noun.
你是第一个这样做的人
Nǐ shì dì yī gè zhèyàng zuò de rén.
You are the first person to do it this way.
However, I do see your point and think the 是 in Desmond's answer is unnecessary when using the “clause + 的 + noun” grammar structure.
| Clause | 的 | Noun |
|---|---|---|
| 她一年前去 | 的 | 北京 |
| One year ago she went to | Beijing |
Based on the explanation from your own text, your last sentence seems to mean "The Beijing to which she went last year"
- 1163
The Chinese noun that follows 的 does not need to become the first word in the English translation.
In my text, one of the examples from the website is:
你是第一个这样做的人
You are the first person to do it this way
You are suggesting that it should be: "The person is you who is first to do it this way". However, that is not a natural translation into English.
You can't always expect to follow a fixed pattern when translating a sentence from natural Chinese into natural English.
Also, 去 means go to a place. So if you really wanted Beijing to come first, it would be: "Beijing is the place that she went to one year ago" or "Beijing is where she went one year ago."
The most important thing is that the meaning is the same.
- 23
As you can see in these links https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/shi4-de/ https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_%22shi...de%22_construction_for_emphasizing_details#Position_of.E7.9A.84 , the position of 的 can come before the object when indicating a non-human (i.e. thing, place). In fact, the first link shows a very similar example to this one: 我是上个月来的北京.
if you translated "she is a one year ago going Beijing" your translation is correct;)
Fyi, as an experiment - i actually took a bunch of chinese people to do the "test out" for this course work and they all failed. Definitely not their problem here.
I selected those with professional fluency in English btw.
- 23
Yes, I said they flowed awkwardly, not that they were grammatically incorrect. The phrasing is not commonly used for both languages.
- 207
They're trying to teach us 是。。。的 sentence construction which is explained in the tips section of this lesson. I'm not a native speaker but my understanding is it's a common sentence construction used to emphasize the time, which is why they're translating it as "It was one year ago that she went to Beijing" rather than "She went to Beijing one year ago." It's a little clunky for sure, but I think that's what they're going for. https://www.duolingo.com/skill/zs/Time-4/tips
- 1163
The 是...的 structure is used for past or completed actions. That being the case, what would be the purpose of also using 了?
Duolingo shows 家 (pronounced as Beijing by the system) in place of 北京 for me in a number of places including this phrase.
Why doesn't this mean, "She is a year go to Beijing."
What makes this, last year?
- 207
I think you're confused because 是 in this sentence does not mean "is". It's part of 是...的 sentence construction which is explained in the notes section of the lesson here https://www.duolingo.com/skill/zs/Time-4/tips
