"The teacher is over there."
Translation:老师在那儿。
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How do we differentiate between 老师在那儿 for "The teacher is over there" and 老师在那儿 for "Where is the teacher?" ?
Do we just use "?" for questions and "。" for statement?
Are you saying that the only difference between "where is she?" and "she's over there" is just one tone (nǎ'er vs nà'er)? I wanna cry.
I also would like to know the answer... I know "ma" on the end produces a question, but with this exmaple that doesn't always work?
Hi, I think "ma" is only used for questions that can be answered with a "yes" or a "no". Maybe your comment is old and you already knew this, but I don't know how to know that, I'm kinda new to duolingo hahaha
Why is, "The teacher is over there", and, "The restaurant is over there", written two different ways in Chinese? "The restaurant is over there" is written, "Over there is the restaurant" while, The teacher, is written, "The teacher is over there". I do not understand why they are written in opposite structures in Chinese, but the same English sentence structure.
Can we write Na'er zai laoshi? Or at least say Na'er zai laoshi in spoken language? Many thanks!
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No on both counts. No worries! :)
I'm not sure about word order but usually when talking about where a person is that's how you say it （老师/医生/他们 在 那里/哪儿。 / 哪里/哪儿？）. One way to think think about of 在 is in the sense of "in" in the answer 老师在学校/医生在医院/他们在餐馆吃饭。
As far as I understand, I don't think so. Chinese follows a pretty strict word order, with subject (老师) always coming before the verb/preposition (在)
it is "er" and is often prounounced with another term, i.g. 那儿 = nǎ'er = sounds like 'nar'
hope this helps
6-4-18 Its interesting that 在 does not just mean inside of. I have to get used to that
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So of course, we write it with different symbols and pinyin as well, but if you're speaking with someone, then how do you make a difference between the pronunciation of "over there" and "where"? I mean we pronounce "na" at both words...