She's drinking coffee and listening to music.

[ma3zi1]

I was helping a friend with her Chinese homework and I saw that she tried the following sentence pattern:

她正在一邊喝咖啡，一邊聽音樂。

This sounded awkward and incorrect to me. My explanation was that it is redundant to use both 正在 and 一邊. Anyway, so I came up with a few other ways to say it that sounded right to me:

1）她一邊聽著音樂，一邊喝了咖啡。

2）她正在聽著音樂，也喝著一杯咖啡。

3）她正在聽著音樂、喝著咖啡。

Problem is that she only knows 正在 at this point, not [verb]著. And, the exercise in her homework requires her to use 正在 alone. So this led us to try writing:

她正在聽音樂、喝咖啡。

But now that sounds funny to me... any thoughts?

[renzhe]

Both "她正在一邊喝咖啡，一邊聽音樂" and "她正在聽音樂、喝咖啡" sound fine to me.

在 + V + 着 is colloquial and can be heard spoken, but I don't think that it is grammatically correct in writing. At least that was the result of our last 在 and 着 discussion here. 在 and 着 are different ways of indicating that an action is progressing, and are usually tied to particular verbs (stative verbs tend to take 着 , while action verbs tend to go with 在). I can't find the thread now, if anyone can remember it, it would be great to link to it.

正在 + V + 着 sounds very odd, I don't think it's right.

[ma3zi1]

Hmm, that makes a lot of sense. I was desperately trying to force the 正 in there for examples 2 and 3. However, if I was going to say it aloud, it would've omitted the 正 and just said "在 [verb] 著"...

My thinking was that I didn't want to confuse her even more by explaining that 正 is optional.

Thanks for the help!

Edit:

Also, "正在一邊" returns just shy of 900,000 G-hits with lots of different examples. So in this instance, my intuition was a complete failure to me

[jbradfor]

I can't find the thread now, if anyone can remember it, it would be great to link to it.

Do you mean this thread? No, wait, in that thread you write "We had a thread about this some time ago, but I can't find it right now."

Maybe you mean this post from where-is-he-now-chrix?

[renzhe]

Yes, thank you. You can see that my google-fu isn't improving.

EDIT: You have to love it how a thread named "a few simple beginner questions" ended up being all super technical

[ma3zi1]

You have to love it how a thread named "a few simple beginner questions" ended up being all super technical

haha, well said!

Edit:

A Taiwanese colleague of mine just gave me these corrections

0）她正一邊喝咖啡，一邊聽音樂。

1）她一邊聽著音樂，一邊喝著咖啡。

2a）她正在聽著音樂，還喝著一杯咖啡。

2b）她正在聽著音樂，一邊喝著咖啡。

3）她正在聽音樂、喝著咖啡。

[skylee]

I would write, 她邊喝咖啡，邊聽音樂。

[ma3zi1]

I would write, 她邊喝咖啡，邊聽音樂。

Thanks skylee! I also presented her with that option, but she was hesitant to stray from her book this early in her Chinese education. And, the book presents the structure as "一邊……，一邊……".