"你知道长江在哪儿吗?"
Translation:Do you know where the Yangtze is?
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I am Chinese, let me try to explain it.
江 is equivalent to river. But you may ask what's the different between 河 and 江 as both are translated to "river". To answer it, we need to know Yellow River (黃河) as well.
Yangtze (長江) and Yellow River (黃河) are the largest river and second largest rivers in China. Yangtze (長江) is at south and Yellow River (黃河) at north. Therefore, rivers at south are named as xx江, yy江... etc. And rivers at north are named zz河... etc. Although there are some exceptions, the naming of rivers is mainly come from these two rivers.
For your sentence "Do you know where the Yangtze River is?", just like asking "Where is the White House?". We won't say "Where is the White House Building?". It give me the same feeling where I read "Yangtze River".
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That's all fine but in English we do in fact say both "The Yangtze" and "The Yangtze River". With some rivers we usually leave off "river" and with some we usually add it, and with some both are common. And with some we even do it another way like "The River Nile".
Thank you a lot for that King184867! As Richard said, many of us here are new to the Chinese language. However, I would dare say that most of came here out of sheer curiosity about it's amazing culture and ancient language. So, little bits and pieces of information like that are exactly what we need. Kindly, keep them coming and thanks again. :)
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Right, but in Spanish you wouldn't say "sur del rio Rio Grande". Kind of like the play on words in Kung Fu Panda, with Master Shifu ☺
I was confused because a comment on another question says "In Chinese 江 is supposed to be a large river whereas 河 is a river or a watercourse..."
Here's a stack exchange question that gives more nuance: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/9548/whats-the-difference-between-江-and-河
Here again they should have inserted a note with just a little little explanation, saying that rivers are often called He in the north and Jiang in the South, and that the common word for Yangtse (an old poetic rendering of the name) is the two syllable word Changjiang, or Longriver ( it is one of the two or three longest in the world). But it's free. If my lungs screeds are not helpful, please inform me with a reply. I'm an old teacher, and I'm pretty sure that is what I have to say will be useful to some people, but if the majority find it intrusive within this paradigm I'll stop. And don't forget that Duolingo is free.
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Another answer to memorize... "Do you know where is the Yangtze?" is marked wrong. Reported 01 July 2021.