confused. someone help please :)

[Yīngguó_Yángguāng]

can't for the life of me understand which option is the right one.

Mei you = i've gathered means the activity ect is not being performed.

Mei zai = im guessing means the same.

can anyone help please.

xie xie. zaijian

[semantic nuance]

Both are ok. Your understanding is quite close. To me, mei 2zai4 emphasizes more on 'now' --a process that is going on.

Hope it helps!

[jbradfor]

Google has 142k hits for ”他沒有睡覺“, and 97k hits for ”他沒在睡覺“. So while neither seems that common, neither one seems obviously better.

[aristotle1990]

Google has 142k hits for ”他沒有睡覺“, and 97k hits for ”他沒在睡覺“. So while neither seems that common, neither one seems obviously better.

Google only has 43 results for "他沒在睡覺". Click "5" at the bottom to see the actual figure. "他沒有睡覺" is the clear answer here, especially if you're a beginner.

This is why I like to use Baidu for this stuff.

[creamyhorror]

Mei you = i've gathered means the activity ect is not being performed.

Mei zai = im guessing means the same.

A small difference...

没有睡觉 = didn't sleep / didn't go to sleep

没在睡觉 = is not (currently) sleeping

You would say 他昨晚没(有)睡觉, and you could say 他现在没睡觉，他现在没有睡觉 and 他现在没在睡觉.

[Yīngguó_Yángguāng]

ni hao, mei ge ren!

Xie xie mei ge ren.

it makes more sense now.

the answer that is correct on the software was 'mei zai'

zai by itself i think would mean the person is in the process of.

mei zai, like mei you indicates both negative outcomes

i think creamyhorror has it and semantic nuance.

mei zai = is not

mei you = did not

So mei you im guessing is always applied to the past tense and mei zai to the present tense. next will be the future tense, i guess it includes 'mei' but im not that far yet lol.

xie xie Měi gèrén.

[jbradfor]

Google only has 43 results for "他沒在睡覺". Click "5" at the bottom to see the actual figure.

Interesting..... if you do that and then click on "show all results", and then click on "8", you'll see that there are actually only 79 even with repeats.....

[Hugh]

Whilst the Google result frequency trick is good for checking if a particular phrase is valid or exists, it's a lot trickier to get it to tell you about the difference between two things or which one to use in a situation. In the situation the OP gave, I think it's almost certainly "他没在睡觉". It is pretty ambiguous though. Who knows if the little guy slept last night or not? If he didn't then it could be "她没有睡觉", although I think "他睡不着觉" might be better in that case.

[Mugi]

It's a picture of a toddler currently awake and playing - I don't see where the ambiguity is ...

[semantic nuance]

Google has 142k hits for ”他沒有睡覺“, and 97k hits for ”他沒在睡覺“. So while neither seems that common, neither one seems obviously better.

Google only has 43 results for "他沒在睡覺". Click "5" at the bottom to see the actual figure. "他沒有睡覺" is the clear answer here, especially if you're a beginner.

Please don't forget sentences are used in different contexts. The google hits cannot definitely ensure that the popularity of one single sentence represents authenticity. And I totally agree with Mugi that the picture speaks for itself.

You can either say 他沒有睡覺 or 他沒在睡覺. Or, you can even say 他沒有在睡覺 in this context. All three mean that the toddler is not sleeping.

[Shi Tong]

Dont forget that it's also to do with tenses, I feel.

沒在 is present tense. (他現在沒在睡覺， 他在玩玩具)

沒有 is present and past, IMO- 他沒有睡覺 can mean "he's not asleep"(他現在沒有（在）睡覺， 他在玩玩具), or "he didn't sleep"(他昨天晚上沒有睡覺， 他一直玩玩具), though I would actually say that if you want to pin point the present tense, using 沒在 is more specific. I must say if used in present tense though, I wouldn't feel very comfortable without the 在 added (他現在沒有（在）睡覺， 他在玩玩具)

I really hate these sentences though, they're always so short, and never really dressed up as people really say them. Semantic has a good option with 他沒有在睡覺, which is what I'd say, and creamy has another few useful examples there as people really speak.

IMO- the correct sentences would be: 他沒有在睡覺 (he's not sleeping NOW), 他睡著了 (He's fallen asleep), 他（昨天晚上）沒有睡覺 (he didn't sleep, or last night he didn't sleep).

Some people also use 睡 on it's own. (他（昨天晚上）沒有睡)

[anonymoose]

So what's the difference between 他没有在睡觉 and 他不在睡觉?

[Shi Tong]

Anon..

I'd say that yours is probably better mate: 他不在睡觉 (he not at sleeping), compared with 他没有在睡觉 (he not have at sleeping).

problem is you hear both a lot- I'd think yours is CORRECT though ;)

[Ava]

"So mei you im guessing is always applied to the past tense and mei zai to the present tense. next will be the future tense, i guess it includes 'mei' but im not that far yet lol."

I think this conclusion is not quite incorrect.

e,g: wo mei you qian(我没有钱）

it can means i have no money and also I had no money.

"mei you" itself has no tense. We can use it to describe the past, current and also future. We can judge it based on the context and specific situation.

eg:- neng jie wo dian qian ma?(能借我点钱？）

- wo mei you qian(我没有钱）means：I have no money

- qu nian ni zen me mei qu Huangshan？（去年你怎么没去黄山玩？）

- wo mei you qian（我没有钱） means： I had no meney.