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- "She likes to smoke after dri…
"She likes to smoke after drinking alcohol."
Translation:她喜欢在喝酒后抽烟。
21 Comments
That's what i put, but only because there was no option to put 以后. I think you need to use 在 if you can't use 以后 or 然后.
This 后 is short for 以后 which should be easy to look up in your grammar reference. Theres also 以前
I think Chinese grammar always puts time phrases first while in English we're used to putting them at the end. So if she smokes after drinking, the "after drinking" phrase comes before the smoking. Things get more confusing because the word for "after" itself comes after the word instead of before. She likes at drinking (time afterward) to smoke.
I have looked at this example sentence many many times and I still cannot make heads or tails of it.
她 = She
喜欢 = likes
在 (not strictly necessary, but shows that we are talking about the upcoming time unit in general, not one specific instance)
喝 = to drink
酒 = alcohol
后 = after the event listed prior (after occasions of drinking alcohol)
抽烟 = to smoke.
544
Thanks. The zai I normally take to mean "located at" but see it also means "to". Which wasn't clear as it was "hidden" in the hover translation of "likes" by being under the main interpretation. Still seems to be a form that will take a long time to be instinctive. The hover translation wasn't overly clear about the "after" either, having just jammed it in as part of the "drink alcohol" translation. Still, a bit clearer now thanks to you.
No, "在" doesn't mean "to"; it roughly still means "located at", but in this usage the location is on a timeline, relative to the progression of an activity.
("喝" and "抽烟" are verbs but probably shouldn't be put in the to-infinitive in a direct word-for-word translation, as Chinese verbs don't have forms in and of themselves. Context and other words acting as aspect/mood markers can impart the appropriate "color" to a verb.)
