Expressing "about"

[Noqa]

How can I say "about" in Chinese? For example how to translate "Ancient greek plays were about gods and mortals" or "This book is about a girl working in a factory".

In my textbook 介绍 was often used, for example for essays/newspaper articles, but I suspect I can't use t everywhere. From what I see there is no real Chinese "about" (and nothing suprising about that), so what are the ways to express that? I was thinking about 这本书是女在工厂工作的, but I'm not sure if in Chinese a book can really speak.

It seems when it comes to verbs it's easier, I can just omit the "about" as Chinese treats the object as direct: 我想去中国. 我想这本书, am I right?

[skylee]

Consider 關於.

[fanglu]

关于 is about, but it's not used the same as in English.

For the book about the girl in the factory, think about ways of saying it in English without using the word about, for example tells (讲) - 这本书讲的是一个女工人的故事。

[WestTexas]

About is a word I'd never considered complicated until I started teaching English to Chinese students. I quickly discovered that about, and many other prepositions, are highly polysemous. The word has many different English meanings, and as a result, there are probably dozens of different ways to translate about. Consider:

-It's about 4 o'clock.

-Talk about your weekend.

-Forget about it.

-How about we go shopping?

-I'm about to go shopping.

-We walked about.

-It's about time!

and probably more other examples.

[Noqa]

Thank you all.

@WestTexas, what I'm thinking is rather about the "about" as kind of a case governement thing, to think about[/n], to speak about, to be about, all in the meaning of being something's topic, etc.

As for the "about 3 meters", "about to go" I alsways somehow finded a way.

@fanglu, so basically the construction I may use is: "A讲的是B的故事" for "A is about B"?

I'm trying to find other ways in English, but can you really say "Talk about him" without using "about"?

Maybe "Talk, describing him", but would that work out?

[li3wei1]

can you really say "Talk about him" without using "about"?

discuss him, discuss his situation/circumstances/case?

[fanglu]

"A讲的是B的故事" for "A is about B"?

It's more "A tells the story of B"

[thincat]

I am a native Chinese speaker.

WestTexas is absolutely right. There are many ways of translating the word “about”. I try to translate all these example sentences mentioned above to let you have a look:

Ancient greek plays were about gods and mortals:

古希腊的戏剧都是关于人和神的。

This book is about a girl working in a factory

这本书是关于一个在工厂工作的女孩。

It's about 4 o'clock.

现在大约四点钟。

How about we go shopping?

不如(How about)去逛街吧？/　去逛街好吗?(the meaning of “How about” is hidden in the interrogative structure of 去…好吗?)

I'm about to go shopping.

我快要去逛街了。

It's about time!

时间快到了！

I hope my explanation can help you.