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- "你知道长江在哪儿吗？"
"你知道长江在哪儿吗？"
Translation:Do you know where the Yangtze is?
22 Comments
"Do you know where the Yangtze River is?" was not accepted. Is 江 equivalent to river or would the only way my sentence work would be if it was 长江河?
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".
Thank you for the explanation. As a native English speaker and just starting to learn Chinese, I/we do not know these valuable items of information. The feedback from the native Chinese speakers, helps us a lot.
Yes, but "Yangtze River" is how we would say it in English, so it should be accepted.
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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. :)
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 ☺
Thank you for that explanation! I've been wondering about the difference between the two for some time.
The trouble is the English translation. We often add redundant parts on the end, so we would usually say "the Yangtze River". Similar to PIN number, or in my country we have the Avon River (literally the river river), and Lake Rotorua (lake two lakes).
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
"Where is the Yangtze?" is a correct question on its own. However, once you add "Do you know..." to the front, you need to switch your word order to "Do you know where the Yangtze is?"
It is a little tricky with the name of some things. Think of asking the question without the name.
examples:
where is the river - not: where is river
where is the Hotel - not: where is hotel
so just add in the proper name:
where is the Yellow river
where is the Hilton hotel
Hope that helps.
Duolinguo! I accomplished three excersices of "Work" (level 0), it showed the full circle and then there was a bug again- the program shows that the level wasn't finished so I had to do it all over again. It happenes constantly!
Yangtze and Yangtze River are names used in the West, for the river called Chang Jiang in China. I therefore think Yangtze River should be accepted.
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Do you know where is the Yangtze river? Is not not the same meaning as the above? If you said its not that means I have to memorized what you have written?
