How do I say, " sometime we should..."

[stoney]

For example; “Sometime we should play basketball."

有时候让我们打篮球吧。 I'm thinking this is wrong as it's "sometimes" .

I want "sometime" in the future.

Need help

Thanks

[muyongshi]

Try 有空 or 有时间

有空我们应该去打点篮球。

You could also say 找点时间

[steedliu]

回头打球去吧

in common use.

[XiaoXi]

回头打球去吧

in common use.

If you don't say 篮球 how do they know you mean basketball?

[HashiriKata]

If you don't say 篮球 how do they know you mean basketball?

Then include what's necessary in the context. Obviously, there's also harm in including too much info when the context has made it unnecessary.

[stoney]

So does 回头 here mean "sometime in the future", or " at the next opportunity" rather than it's literal meaning?

How about using 某个时候 or 某个天？

[HashiriKata]

回头 means "(a bit) later"

[Guoke]

有空我们一起去打篮球。

有时间我们一起去打篮球。

找个时间我们一起去打篮球。

找一天我们一起去打篮球。

[leeyah]

回头 is informal for (sometime) later. You can often hear people say >> 回头见! See you later!

& you don't need to specify basketball because everywhere you look it's boys playing 篮球 (!), not 足球 - strangely enough, that's girls' territory in China So, when they say 打球 they mean basketball.

[XiaoXi]

Then include what's necessary in the context. Obviously, there's also harm in including too much info when the context has made it unnecessary.

Yes as long as someone has mentioned the word basketball already then you can use that sentence but otherwise I don't think you'd have any idea.

[muyongshi]

you don't need to specify basketball because everywhere you look it's boys playing 篮球 (!), not 足球 - strangely enough, that's girls' territory in China So, when they say 打球 they mean basketball.

Well that is definitely not true.

[xiaocai]

you don't need to specify basketball because everywhere you look it's boys playing 篮球 (!), not 足球 - strangely enough, that's girls' territory in China So, when they say 打球 they mean basketball.

Well usually you 踢足球 instead of 打足球. But I'm not really very sure if the boys will be very happy to hear that 足球 is "girls' territory" in China or not.

[leeyah]

I thought the 踢 goes without saying in 足球, but it's ok, mea culpa for not specifying. Em, what about baseball? I suppose it's also 打球?

& guys, I didn't mean to be rude, I'd really be glad to hear more about men's football in China as soon as they actually manage to get past World Cup qualifications in such a notorious group with Iraq, UAE, Mianmar et al (I dare not imagine what it'd look like if they had Japan or Korea as opponents!!!) On the other hand, Chinese soccer "ladies" are already packing their stuff for the World Cup 2010. I'd most certainly prefer seeing Chinese guys make it to the World Cup for a change ... Any time. Trust me.

[muyongshi]

Yeah I don't give a rat's tail about pro sports in this discussion. We are talking about normal, everyday average people here. I mean you're not gonna walk up to yao ming and say "hey, lets play some bball someday!".

So your statement is still just a load of nothingness because people play both sports here equally and actually on the lower levels of common people, aside from maybe college students, I'd say guys dominate in both sports for leisure activities.

Edit: and by dominate I'm not talking about who's better, just numbers of who plays them

[xiaocai]

I thought the 踢 goes without saying in 足球, but it's ok, mea culpa for not specifying. Em, what about baseball? I suppose it's also 打球?

My point is, 足球 was not a very good example here. Certainly you could take the 球 in 打球 as 排球 or 棒球 or even 羽毛球, but not really 足球, IMHO.

Back to OP's question, you can try 啥时候一起去打篮球吧, if you want to sound a bit "northern".

[Guest realmayo]

So: if a Chinese guy said he was going to 打球, would his friends usually assume he meant basketball?

[muyongshi]

Who knows... might depend on the guy. I know lots of guys that would rather play 乒乓 or 羽毛 as opposed to 篮球. Assumption is never good.

[Guest realmayo]

Assumption is never good.

Easily wrong! And I wasn't asking about hpyothetical people's sporting preferences, but common usage of 打球....

[muyongshi]

And I wasn't asking about hpyothetical people's sporting preferences, but common usage of 打球....

I know... and what I'm saying is that the "common" usage will depend on who you are talking to. There is not a if I go up to 50 people randomly and say this 45 of them will say basketball. It will vary greatly and that was the point of my answer.

[Guest realmayo]

Ah, cos basically language is all about making assumptions, otherwise we'd spend far too long thinking about what we'd just heard. But thanks for clarifying that 打球 is not generally used as shorthand for play basketball in China.