"Everyone has arrived, where are you now?"
Translation:大家都到了，你现在在哪儿？
24 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
现在 is the time word "now". Grammatically, it works like any point in time: 今天，去年，这个周末，etc. (It is placed before or after the subject.) 正在 modifies the verb. The mening is like adding "-ing" to a verb in English (although it is not used in as many circumstances in Chinese as in English). It shows that the verb is IN PROGRESS RIGHT NOW. 在 alone can also be used for verbs in progress, but 正在 puts even more emphasis on the "happening right now" aspect. Both 在 and 正在 are placed directly before the verb they modify.
Except, everyone is at the party now, except you, and i want to know where you are, RIGHT NOW. ... Your parents are asking me. Your friends are asking me. It's super awkward.
正在 is for an action in progress. "Being" somewhere ("在哪儿" in this case) is not an action, which is why you can't use 正在 in this case.
I am also surprised. My thinking was 都 would signal that they all arrived together. But the English sentence doesn't say that
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A native speaker told me it sounds awkward to her to use ”正在在哪儿“ and recommended it more natural to say "现在在哪儿"
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Yes, I'm equally confused. My understanding is that adding "dou" is more common (i.e., it's what a native speaker would say), but there is no error in omitting the dou. I flagged it for review because I don't think it should be marked incorrect.
I think 都 cannot really stand on its own. I've only seen it work as a kind of "modifier" for other words, like 大家. But don't ask me what the difference between 大家 and 大家都 is...
都 is an adverb, so it can't be the subject of the sentence. 大家 is a pronoun. 大家都+verb just emphasizes the all-inclusive nature. (It does not technically change the meaning of the sentence from just 大家.)
大家都 is commonly used in Chinese. (It does not sound wordy as it would in English.)
Why is "都" necessary? This has been asked numerous times, dating back three years, yet has received no reply nor an update.
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In all the tv shows I watched until now (I forgot the number) "大家" has always been written without "都"... Either Chinese people don't know how to speak their language or correction algorithms are a little bit too wordy and/or "word to word"...
