How To Ask Questions Like "since When ..."

[muellhalde24]

大家好!

I am trying to figure out how to ask questions like "Since when do you live in Beijing?" or "Since when do you like Punk music?", with special emphasize on the "Since when" structure.

I know how to ask "How long have you been living in Beijing now?" or "When did you move to Beijing?", but that's not what I am looking for...

Can anyone perhaps help? It's very appreciated.

谢谢你们!

[Yezze]

I am still learning Chinese (4th yr), so this may not be 100% correct.

I am pretty sure you can use "从什么时候" for the English saying, since when.

Ex- 他从什么时候起学英语 -> Since when has he studied English.

[anonymoose]

"Since when" can be translated as 什么时候开始, so your two sentences would be:

"Since when have you lived in Beijing?": 你什么时候开始住在北京？

"Since when have you liked Punk music?": 你什么时候开始喜欢朋克音乐？

But I think if you want to make it sound natural, then you asking "When did you move to Beijing?" would be better.

Anyway, that's my feeling as a non-native speaker.

[muellhalde24]

Yeah thanks a lot!

As I asked my Laoshi how to say "I am trying to reach you since 11 o'clock...", she translated it into:

"从11点开始...", where she put the 开始 in brackets telling me that this can be omitted here.

So I presume that I am safe with "从什么时候开始..."

Greets!

[xiaocai]

Yes, and personally I think it sounds better to me with the 从. I normally will say 你是从什么时候开始住在北京的? Just my personal preference though.

[fengyixiao]

从 usually can be omitted.

[skylee]

I agree with xiaocai.

[edelweis]

I've just learned about 从...起 and found these samples sentences with google:

是从什么时候起，你淡出了我的生命？

和尚从什么时候起开始不吃肉的

我国从什么时候起就有了历法？

would this be an alternate way to ask the kind of question the OP meant?

[skylee]

從甚麽時候開始 = 從甚麽時候起

[edelweis]

hmmm thanks Skylee.