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"Do we eat at 9 in the evening?"
Translation:我们晚上九点吃饭吗？
21 Comments
I believe you always start vague and get more specific when referring to time. So like 晚上 is more broad and then you get more specific by saying 九点。
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晚上 (wǎn shàng) = first part of the night = before the night = evening
下午 (xià wǔ) = second part of noon = after noon = afternoon
Why is "我们晚上九点吃吗？" without the 饭 character, an incorrect translation? I understand that 吃饭 implies eating a meal, but the question was merely "do we eat...?".
Update: Chinese colleague told me they were both right.
Because there was no today in the sentence. And if you think about it in English we tend to say '' Do we eat at 9 P.M?'' instead of ''Do we eat at 9 P.M. today?''
this is poorly translated. Follow discussion
"Do we eat at 9 in the evening?" in English implies that it's a repeated action. that means no one would ask this unless they had brain damage. "Are we eating at 9 in the evening?" should be the English translation.
Well, it could be a child asking his mother; albeit 9 in the evening is pretty late for dinner.
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Can I say 我们晚九点吃饭吗? Is there a rule for when I need to include 上 in relation to a time of day? Thanks!
You have: 上午：that means morning 下午：means afternoon 晚上：means evening and night
There isn't a rule connected. These are just vocabulary you need to learn
Wouldn't a more appropriate translation be "we eat dinner at 9 in the evening, right?"
In an earlier answer, an experienced learner pointed out that whether the subject (we) or the time comes first depends on what bit of the sentence you want to stress. In this case, it works seem logical that the info requested is time, not "Is it us who will eat?" I expected this answer (in pinyin) to be accepted, but it wasn't: At nine in the evening we eat dinner ma.
