的时候

[Thomill]

Hello,

I am trying to understand these structures (as part of Rosetta Stone Level 2)....

我以前住在罗马的时候是一个孩子。

你以前住在巴黎的时候有自行车。

It seems that 的时候 means simply "when" but after that I do not understand the grammar.

Also,

我们等公共汽车的时候下雨了。

is given as an example. Why is 了 needed here and not above?

Thank you.

[Jakegwood]

I am not quite sure about the sentence about Rome, but I believe it's saying that he lives in Rome as an adult... but definitely someone verify that. To my understanding, he's saying, "Before I lived in Rome I was a child.

The second one is just saying that before you lived in paris you had a bike.

Don't think of 时候 so much like when. Just think of it as time. Before my live in Paris time, I had a bike. "live in paris" is the adjectival phrase describing the time.

了 in this case just indicates a change of state. It began to rain. It was not raining before and now it is.

[Hofmann]

You know 時候 means "time," right? So something的時候 means "something's time" i.e. "when something."

住在羅馬的時候 "when (I) live(d) in Rome"

了 is in that sentence because something changed. You may have gotten the impression that 了 is a past tense marker. Rosetta Stone probably doesn't tell you that 了 is a perfective aspect particle, used to indicate a completed action.

[JackTheCrow]

Hi Italian Friend(maybe)

The structure 的时候 means ''When...''

For Example:

我妈妈吃饭的时候，他经常唱歌 ‘’When my mother cook,often sing''

So

我以前住在罗马的时候是一个孩子 ''When i lived in Rome was a child''

你以前住在巴黎的时候有自行车。 ''When i lived in Paris had a bicycle''

Now,in this case:

我们等公共汽车的时候下雨了

了 means a new situation for example: ''Before i was drinking a coffee in the restaurant,(don't raining)when i go to the bus stop starts raining.

Sorry for the Bad English men

[AlexL]

我以前住在罗马的时候是一个孩子。 When I lived in Rome, I was a child.

你以前住在巴黎的时候有自行车。When you lived in Paris, you had a bicycle.

我们等公共汽车的时候下雨了。 It started to rain while we were waiting for the bus.

To my (admittedly foreign) ears, these sentences sound very strange/unnatural. (Hopefully a native speaker can either back me up or tell me I'm wrong!) In fact, a lot of the Rosetta Stone sentences do.

A couple notes, though:

1) The 以前 can be translated to "used to" -- "When I used to live in Rome, I was a child." "When you used to live in Paris, you had a bike." Without it, the sentences could be interpreted to mean other things in the right contexts. For example, "When I live in Rome, I am a child. [but when I come back to work at the end of vacation, I always am jolted back into the adult world.]" Or "When I live in Paris, I have a bike. [but when I stay in other cities, I usually just take public transportation.]"

2) 的时候 means "When" (but not as a question). The examples given above (by other users, not RS) are good. 的时候 is usually used with verb phrases （下雨的时候，你应该带伞出去 - when it rains, you should bring an umbrella with you going out) but can also be used with nouns (白天的时候 － during the day). Most places, 的时候 can be replaced with the shorter form 时 without losing any meaning.

3) 了 in the last sentence is used to indicate the "past tense" of a physical action. Living somewhere, being something, having something, feeling something -- all of these are not physical actions with a start and end point, and therefore do not use 了 this way. But for things like "It started raining" or "I phoned him" you can. On its own, 下雨了 means "It's raining now" -- the 了 indicates a new situation (as described by the poster above). It might be translated "It's raining [now]!" But here, it seems Rosetta Stone wants to use it to mean "it then started raining". I feel like it would be more natural to say 我们等公共汽车的时候，［居然］开始下雨了！but maybe my 语感 is not well developed enough.

[WestTexas]

我以前住在罗马的时候是一个孩子。

你以前住在巴黎的时候有自行车。

If it's clear from context that you lived in Rome/Paris in the past you can omit 以前, right? I don't remember seeing 以前 used with 的时候 before. I feel like 以前 is more commonly used either as an adjective or at the end of a phrase to signify a previous time, ex. 我以前的老板 = my former boss or 八个月以前 = 8 months ago.

I think Rosetta Stone is not that great for Chinese. A lot of the vocab is not that useful (someone who doesn't understand past tense doesn't need words for Rome and Paris). The speaking part doesn't process tones very well unless you turn up the sensitivity. Also, why is it that so many books and programs teach "Where are you from?" as 你是从哪儿来的？ when in actuality the majority of people will say 你是哪里人? or 你是哪个国家的？

[creamyhorror]

我以前住在罗马的时候是一个孩子。

This sentence seems a bit unnatural to me, even if it's technically correct. Grammatically, 住在罗马的时候 acts to clarify 以前. 以前 and 住在罗马的时候 are parenthetical to each other, i.e. you can remove either one and still have the sentence make sense:

我以前是一个孩子。 = In the past I was a child. / I used to be a child.

我住在罗马的时候是一个孩子。 = When I live(d) in Rome I was/am a child.

I think the sentence would sound better if it were 我以前住在罗马的时候只是一个小孩。 or, if it fit the context, 我(是)小时候住在罗马(的)。

你以前住在巴黎的时候有自行车。

[你] [以前] [住在巴黎的时候] [有自行车]。

[You] [in the past] [when (you) lived in Paris] [had a bicycle].

[imron]

I don't remember seeing 以前 used with 的时候 before.

For reference, Google has 3.1 billion results for “以前*的时候”

[WestTexas]

For reference, Google has 3.1 billion results for “以前*的时候”

They are both very common words. With regular expressions, 以前*的时候 just means that 的时候 follows 以前 on some webpage. * can be anything. It doesn't mean they are in the same sentence.

[imron]

Did you have a look at the results? On the first page we have:

以前发作的时候...

以前玩的时候...

以前小的时候...

以前性交的时候...

以前战争的时候...

以前怀孕的时候...

以前高中的时候...

以前取材的时候...

While I'm sure some number of those 3.1 billion are not in the same sentence, there are also a large number that are, enough at least to show it is not uncommon usage.

[anonymoose]

The way I see it is that 我以前住在罗马的时候 would be equivalent to saying in English, "Before, when I lived in Rome,...". Like the "before" in English, 以前 might be a bit redundant, but I don't see a problem with it.

[AlexL]

I agree that RS is not ideal for Mandarin. I wrote a sort of rant with all my reasoning here if you're interested: http://www.quora.com/Is-Rosetta-Stone-for-Mandarin-a-good-learning-tool-Is-there-anything-better/answer/Alex-Lew

Many of the sentences are, while technically correct, awkward; very literal translations of English or Spanish sentences.

[yellowpower]

我以前住在罗马的时候是一个孩子。

你以前住在巴黎的时候有自行车。

think it's more 'natural' this way: 以前我住在罗马的时候是一个孩子

以前你住在巴黎的时候有自行车

in the beginning best to keep it simple...consider this as one sentence pattern that you can use to talk about the past. There are other ways and 'grammatical' forms which you will learn later on. Again, context 'determines' the meaning, so in this pattern it can mean 'in the past', When I was', 'used to be'...it may seem confusing to a newbie but after a while with more reading, etc you'll understand it.

In English, there are different tenses: to walk, walked, has walked, will walk, had walked,is walking..so consider 的时候 when used alone as one way of marking the time/tense aspect (there are other ways)in a sentence. Context will help you determine the meaning.

Not try to understand everything at once...it's like a building block. Digest what you can, and come back to it later..right now you're in the building stages.

[歐博思]

If you have to use the words given, I also feel moving 以前 to the front sounds better.

Chinese likes to stack all the adjectives before a noun, so maybe you can think of it like:

我以前住在罗马的时候是一个孩子。

lived-in-Rome-de-moment ; moment 时候 maybe regard as a noun being modified by "live in Rome" so it is the moment or time you lived in Rome and thus equivalent to English 'when'.

你以前住在巴黎的时候有自行车。

same deal here.

I don't know if my explanation is solid, but it helped me when I first started.

[Thomill]

Thanks to all for helping me understand this. I appreciate the aid.

[renshanrenhai]

I am a Chinese native speaker as well as an English learner, so i really understand your difficulties in understanding Chinese grammar.

What makes Chinese people very confused in English is what makes you non-Chinese speakers feel at sea.

As a matter of fact, the grammar in English and that in Chinese is completely different and therefore both the learners at beginner level will find it's hard to follow the logic in each grammar.

The "的时候"is really a quite common phrase in Chinese. To understand the sentence like "我以前住在罗马的时候是一个孩子。", we can disintegrate it in English in this way, "When i lived in Rome, I was just a kid." So you can see "的时候" work as "When"， but the difference is that we put the Chinese"when"(i.e.的时候) at the end of a subordinate clause. If might be helpful for you to understand if i change the sentence in this version "我以前住在罗马的时候（，我）是一个孩子。"

[renshanrenhai]

As to “以前”，i am sure it must make you non-Chinese speaker confused.

I can offer all you a very plausible explanation about "以前".

Very different from English and other Indo-European language, Chinese has no equivalent "-ed", "had done" forms to show the tense but this doesn't mean there is no sign to show the tense. "以前"has several grammar functions in Chinese but here it is not the equivalence of "before". The "以前"here is a very typical sign to show you that this is a past tense, and in the example sentence it functions as the"d" in lived to show you it happened in the past.

I think there is a need to have a brief summary about the usage of "以前".

1. used as a sign to show the past tense . e.g. 我以前住在罗马的时候是一个小孩。 When i lived in Rome, I was a kid.

the formula is : 以前 + verb （住live）= lived

therefore, you can generate by yourselves some phrase like : 我以前做警察/做厨师的时候ect.（policeman/cook）= When I worked as a policeman/ cook,...

You'd better remember the phrase as a whole——以前+do sth.的时候，coz it is a sort of collocation in Chinese .

2. functions as "ago"

three years ago: 三年以前

3. function as "before"

e.g. You have to think before you do. 做事以前要先思考。

I had known him before. 我以前已经认识他了。 （notice: “已经”is a sign of perfect tense like the word "have", so “以前已经”works as past perfect tense "had".）