"We are not allowed to eat on the subway."
Translation:在地铁里我们不准吃饭。
23 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
1709
In English we have different prepositions to indicate spatial relationship: in, on, at, over, above, under, beside, behind... in Chinese, mostly we say 在 for all these. Imagine that we can't insert 里 etc. here. We won't be able to precisely deliver such spatial concepts.
Sometimes we need to have words like 里 here (里, 外, 上, 下, 旁, etc.) to be natural. Nonetheless, it is not absolutely required in all cases. e.g. both 我在地铁站 and 我在地铁站里 are correct. Both tells people about your location, only the latter tells it more precisely.
864
Is it ungrammatical in Chinese to not provide an object for the verb 吃? Should my failed attempt "在地铁里我们不准吃" also be acceptable?
1709
It is still grammatical. I think there is no strict rule in Mandarin that a verb is transitive or intransitive. An object is added when the context requires it.
We do usually need an object for 吃, but when the object is understood, we can omit it.
1709
Going forward you will find that there are other word choices in Chinese that would allow you to say Eat without Things (in this example 在地铁里我们不准进食). It is fair for Duo to keep things simple to be learnable.
1709
It word order depend on the verb.
A simple way to have good word order is:
A place at which the action happens : in front
A place on which the action exercises : after
For 吃 to eat we definitely can't exert this action to a place (as we only eat food not location), so putting the location afterwards is not viable.
But if the verb is 坐 to sit, it would be viable both ways.