"I always go swimming on Saturdays."
Translation:我总是在星期六去游泳。
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915
I dont understand why you would need 是 in this sentence, even less than in the one given as correct
i thought you needed to add a 都 there to show its all the Saturday's. so: 我星期六都总是去游泳
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April 2021, still not accepted, as tons of other similar cases. Have the administrators died already? Where are they buried?
- 1555
Think of it as 'on' or 'at'. Colloquially I usually omit it when talking about time, though. 咱們約今晚(在)七點在餐館吃飯吧。 Let's plan to eat at the restaurant at 7pm tonight.
- 69
It is more idiomatic. And general rules always have exceptions, but it is always better to go off what you read, since what you hear may be colloquial but not (the most) accurate.
I think it must be some some sort construction: when you want to say that you always do something at a certain time, use "subject + 总是在 + time + rest of the sentence". However, this is pure speculation based on the sentences in this lesson.
It doesn't necessarily need it, but 在 can be and sometimes is used before a time. It doesn't necessarily change the meaning of the sentence in any way, but on occasion is makes things more clear.
I'm not 100% on the semantics of this sentence. Does this mean "I go swimming on every Saturday" or "Whenever I go swimming it is a Saturday"?
More like "Whenever I go swimming, it is always on Saturday."
The English translation could be interpreted either way of course but to say "I swim every Saturday" would be different in Mandarin.
I guess you meant 每 not 没. And, I can't say whether it's technically wrong, but I don't think I've ever seen 总是 and 每 used together.
This is wrong. The chinese sentence, if translated to english, would become: I just always go swimming on Saturdays. The english sentence, if translated to chinese, would become: 我永遠在星期六去游泳。
Much of the discussion below is evidently caused by the fact that the English does not distinguish between “if it is Saturday, then I go swimming”, “if I go swimming, then it is Saturday” and “I go swimming if and only if it is Saturday”. The English seems most likely to mean the first, however, while I'm guessing the Chinese is less ambiguous and most likely to mean the second (helping explain the 在)?