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- "It only takes an hour and a …
"It only takes an hour and a half to drive there."
Translation:开车去那儿只要一个半小时。
20 Comments
959
I don't understand the position of the time in Duo's sentence. I think it may have something to do with duration, but I am not sure.
It would be really helpful if a native/advanced speaker could show us all the possible ways to rearrange the Chinese sentence, starting with the most natural and ending with the least natural.
Not a native speaker but my Chinese teacher is. She said the reason for this word order is that Chinese always put the point of emphasis at the end of the sentence.
In this case, the important point being made is how short the drive is.
i think that their version is more like the difference between "do you have a pen(more american sound)" and "have you got a pen? (more english sound)" it doesn't really change the meaning, but it sounds/looks different.
I don't know if your version is wrong, but I will say I've never seen it phrased that way.
- 846
After consulting Bing dictionary. 一个半小时 seems to be an hour and a half. Half an hour would be 半个小时.
- 925
Do we need the "那儿" here or would 开车去只要一个半小时 also be ok? (given that it can be left out in other sentences)
I have the same question. I'm sure "开车去只要一个半小时" is a valid sentence and I'd say "it take an hour and a half to drive there" = "it takes an hour and a half to drive". So I don't see any reason to require 那儿 / 那里.
