New Members ChinaChina Posted December 9, 2011 at 11:06 PM New Members Report Share Posted December 9, 2011 at 11:06 PM Hi, this is my first day starting to learn and I just wanted to clarify the meaning of the following passage. Ta- men zai\ chi- fan\ Which means "They are eating' Thanks for the help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hofmann Posted December 10, 2011 at 01:41 AM Report Share Posted December 10, 2011 at 01:41 AM OK. 他們在吃飯. Morpheme breakdown: 他 third person pronoun 們 pronoun pluralizer 在 continuous aspect particle 吃 eat 飯 rice (used in 吃飯 as food in general) 他們 forms "they" 在 makes the following verb continuous. Can be translated as "-ing" 吃飯 forms "eat (rice)" Cool? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zhouhana Posted December 10, 2011 at 03:08 AM Report Share Posted December 10, 2011 at 03:08 AM Oh, and if Hofmann's characters look different from the ones in your learning material and you're wondering about that, it's because he used traditional characters (used in Hong Kong and Taiwan). With simplified characters (the ones used in Mainland China) it's 他们在吃饭. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted December 10, 2011 at 11:20 AM Report Share Posted December 10, 2011 at 11:20 AM "Sry for the noob question" Noob questions are welcome, txt spk and unhelpful titles aren't - will edit it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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