购买的

[Lu]

It is not 'bought', it is 'in the uncompleted processs of being bought' which may or may not be successful.

Which is exactly what 买 means. Much as 杀 is an attempt at murder which may or may not succeed, so you can say 他自杀了，但幸好没死。

The house in the example is not fully owned by the buyer yet, but he is in the middle of buying it. It's just that when it comes to houses, the buying can take a while. I'm pretty sure that in a similar situation, you can say 'I'm buying a house' in English, even if you're not at that very moment handing over the money.

[Divato]

He already signed up a contract. In his mind, he assumes he bought it already. Buy doesn't mean pay immediately. It's like installment, the customer can say he bought it without paying full amount of the product, such as cellphone.

[MPhillips]

RE Posts Nos. 18 & 19: If I win a million or two USD in the lottery I'm buying a condo in HK for the winter months & a house in Holland for the rest of the year, if I win 10 million a castle in Spain!

PS: I read all urban land in the PRC was the property of the state and thus all you're buying when you buy real estate is a long-term lease (not sure though if that's the right term in the Chinese context). A policy I agree with BTW--confer the economic philosophy of US thinker Henry George--if his ideas had held sway we'd probably be living in a socialist utopia by now.

[陳德聰]

Mr. 山本 does not consider it "bought" because Mr. 山本 is using Chinese and not English to express himself. He considers it 买的.
 

Again:

买的 =/= "bought"

Please stop trying to cram Chinese into an English framework.

[MPhillips]

With a name like 山本 I'd've thunk he was Japanese! He expesses himself in Chinese really well though!

[Lu]

And now consider English: 'How are you coming to London tomorrow?' 'I'm taking a train. My train leaves at 6.' You're not in the process of coming yet, you're not on the train yet, and the train isn't leaving for quite a while, yet you're expressing all this as if it's happening right at this moment!! OMG! Even though it isn't!

[Shelley]

Well said Lu, that is a good example, also in English you can be buying a house right up to the moment it falls through. This can be for many reasons, lack of funds, gazumping or a gap in the buying chain.

[Guest realmayo]

Hope I can get a mortgage for the house I'm buying. Otherwise I won't be able to buy it.

Don't see the problem.

[Pedroski]

Took me a while to get back to this. Apparently in China, people don't just pay you, they also expect you to work sometimes! I, quite naturally, went into shock over this! Good thing I have a week off after those strenuous 2 days!

 

The discussion of tense in any language is not easy. This is not the right place to exchange ideas on tense. Should anyone wish to do that, we could find a place to do that.

 

I am a beginner, but I would never translate '我买的鞋子太少了‘ = ’The shoes I am buying are too small.'

 

'am ----ing' indicates an incompleted action， whether or not the action has begun. That is its use. ’-----的‘ indicates to me a completed action, unless you qualify it, such as '要买的‘

 

The Present Tense is the worst misnomer in the English language. Firstly, the Present is entirely undefined, and secondly, the so called Present Tense is hardly ever used to indicate the moment of now.

 

'My train leaves at 6.' This is clearly Future Tense.

 

You thunk right: 山本 is a Japanese. As we all know, everything is the fault of the Japanese. If it rains in Nanjing, it is the fault of the Japanese. If it is too hot, well, the Japanese. House prices too high? The Japanese! The Govt. never once made a mistake!

[imron]

but I would never translate '我买的鞋子太少了‘ = ’The shoes I am buying are too small.'

Neither would any competent translator (少 vs 小)

[Shelley]

"The discussion of tense in any language is not easy. This is not the right place to exchange ideas on tense. Should anyone wish to do that, we could find a place to do that."

 

I have apparently completely misunderstood the point of this topic and wait eagerly to hear the reasons for the above statement.

[陳德聰]

’-----的‘ indicates to me a completed action, unless you qualify it, such as '要买的‘

This is not a particularly useful rule of thumb to go by, and I would say is simply not true. Whether the action is completed or not depends entirely on the type of verb + context, and not necessarily on how you "quantify" it with or without 的 present.

 

我看的书 can be "the book I read (completed)" or "the book I'm reading" depending very heavily on context.

Edit:

I think it's been covered but in general you would be right about 买 because transactions are usually not a long enough process that you could conceivably see them as "continuous". It then becomes a semantics + reality combination with the beauty of context, which makes it clear that the house is not already bought.

Also this is a matter of aspect more than it is a matter of tense.

[Pedroski]

好的，是‘小'不是’少‘ Obviously, I am suffering from Post Traumatic Stress after having to work!

 

In my uninformed opinion, I tend to find, Chinese uses '在’ to give this sense of 'happening now, not complete'.

 

我看的书很好。is ambiguous. Have you read it, or are you reading it?  To clarify, use '在‘ ’我在看的书很好。'

 

我买的那一套房子很好。

 

我在买的娜一套房子很好。

 

‘reasons for the above statement.’ '买的' = 'am buying' or 'bought'??

[Pedroski]

Just one other example which is similar to English.

 

'Yesterday, I'm sitting in a meeting, when ..' We use this present continuous form to highlight past actions, 'yesterday' clearly indicates this already happened.

 

My text is a meeting.

 

"花城“小区召开业主大会。 参加大会的有业主委员会主任李女士、物业管理公司的周经理和业主代表。This meeting is over. It happened some time ago. It is being reported on.

 

Nevertheless, I would translate '参加大会的' as 'participating in the meeting are' because the style is as if this is happening right now.

 

That is not the same as 笨蛋的山本 saying '我购买的是一个人住房‘ He is not reporting. He is stating.

[Guest realmayo]

Conference organiser A: OMG!

Conference organiser B: What's up?

Conference organiser A: 参加大会的外国贵宾还没来！

 

I think that's okay in Chinese and in English too: the people who are attending the meeting haven't turned up yet. If you try to analyse it it looks odd because if they haven't arrived perhaps they aren't and won't be attending. But I don't think it's grammatically incorrect or is it going to be misunderstood in normal speech.

[Pedroski]

参加大会的外国贵宾还没来！

 

Yeah, it seems like you can formulate this:

 

Our honoured foreign participants have not yet arrived for the meeting.

 

or

 

The distinguished foreigners （who should be) participating in the meeting have not yet arrived.

 

Chinese is definitely easier: 参加大会的 = participate meeting 的 foreign guests

 

As far as I can tell, the Chinese sentence has no sense of the subjunctive at all.

[Shelley]

As far as I can understand it, this whole topic is about tenses, when and for how long an activity has taken place. If that's not about tenses, I give up now.

[陳德聰]

Can we get it straight that tense and aspect are not the same thing? There is no tense at play here, only aspect. 在 marks aspect, 要 marks aspect, both of which are not tense.

 

That being said, a sentence without a specific time reference is most likely to be using "now" as the time reference. But in some cases, verbs embedded within modifiers (verb的noun) can refer to actions that have been completed (了) or are in progress (在) or are approaching (将/要) without making use of the explicit aspect markers. If there is no aspect marking, then it can be dictated solely by the context and the actual reality of the world (i.e. if it doesn't involve a process, you can't really be "in progress").

 

Here I think maybe you have issue with the idea of "买" involving a process. But we've already gone over how in normal circumstances, the process is relatively straight forward, and so it wouldn't make sense to say 我买的鞋 and mean "the shoes I'm buying" in most regular circumstances. But it would make sense to use it that way if when you put the shoes on the counter in the boutique and whip out your credit card to give the shopowner your girlfriend calls you to say "What kind of shoes are you buying?".

 

Same goes for 看的书. Why would I waste my breath saying 我正在看的书太好看了 when I can just say 我看的书太好看了 and be fully understood?

[陳德聰]

Also stop calling 山本 a 笨蛋. He is the one who understands Chinese here.

[Shelley]

Ok i give in.

 

 

There are three aspects in English, the progressive or continuous aspect (expressing duration, typically using the auxiliary verb be with a form in -ing, as in I was reading a book), the perfect or perfective (expressing completed action, typically using the auxiliary verb have with a past participle, as in I have read the book), and unmarked aspect (as in he reads books)