A few questions...

[Song You Shen]

So, in Chinese there are many words that have the same meaning, but can only be used circumstantially.

Ex:

- 你想喝啤酒还是茶？

- 我要十一点钟或者十二点钟吃午饭。

Obviously 还是 is used for questions and 或者 is used for statements.

1) My question is what is the main difference between 但是 and 可是? I often see 但是 used in the beginning of a new sentence, but I do not know if that has anything to do with it.

2) Also, I see 看看, but I am not sure what it, in itself means. Does it mean something like "take a look"?

3) Does this sentence make sense: 昨天你说什么，可是我不明白你说什么。 (What I am trying to say is, "Yesterday you said something to me, but I didn't understand what you said.")

Thanks for the help... I'm sure I'll be coming back with many more random questions!

Youshen

[cui ruide]

1) 但是 in my experience is just a stronger version of 可是

2) 看看 I think is just a colloquial thing, also 看一看, 'softening' the expression, telling/asking someone to take a look at something

3) This may work: "昨天你说什么，可是我不明白你说的话," which emphasizes whomever not understanding what is said, rather than not understanding who said it in general. I might say: "你昨天说什么， 可是我没听懂," which uses a verb compliment, if you're familiar with those. I admit I'm not confident enough to say for certain if it's 没听懂 or 听不懂 -- I'm still not real sure of when you just use 不 because a past tense has been established (since 没有 isn't really a past tense marker)... (does anyone know what I mean?)

[Song You Shen]

Ah, Cui, you also bring up another question I've had for a while...

what is the difference between:

- 你昨天做什么？

and

- 昨天你做什么？

Here the words 你 and 昨天 seem to be interchangeable... however, what is the difference between using one in front of the other? I see this with a lot of different words in Chinese at the beginning of sentences... is there a specific word order for a specific emphasis?

Thanks.

Youshen

[Quest]

what is the difference between:

- 你昨天做什么？

and

- 昨天你做什么？

no difference, emphasis maybe.

[nipponman]

昨天你说什么，可是我不明白你说什么.

I'm no expert, but I don't think that that sentence is a very good one. Only because it seems like a direct translation instead of a natural thing to say. (I might be wrong though.) The English words "what" in this sentence serve two

昨天你说什么，可是我不明白你说的话. seems better to me.

Originally posted by cui rui de

没听懂 or 听不懂 -- I'm still not real sure of when you just use 不 because a past tense has been established (since 没有 isn't really a past tense marker)... (does anyone know what I mean?)

你說什麼﹐不過我沒聽懂。

你說什麼﹐不過我聽不懂。

Here, the first one means, "you said something, but I didn't understand it" (past perfective)

But the second one means, "You said something, but I can't understand it." Seems similar right? Well, the 不 is serving a different function than that of pure negation. It shows that "You were unable to understand (through hearing)". But the first one just shows that the act of understanding (through hearing) didn't happen in the past perfective. I hope that helps,

nipponman

[Song You Shen]

你說什麼﹐不過我沒聽懂。

你說什麼﹐不過我聽不懂。

Here, the first one means, "you said something, but I didn't understand it" (past perfective)

But the second one means, "You said something, but I can't understand it." Seems similar right? Well, the 不 is serving a different function than that of pure negation. It shows that "You were unable to understand (through hearing)". But the first one just shows that the act of understanding (through hearing) didn't happen in the past perfective. I hope that helps,

Interesting. It does help, but there is one thing you said that confused me... 沒聽懂 sounds like it would imply that I couldn't understand what was said through hearing (i.e. I couldn't hear what you said) (transliteration - "not listen understand"). While the other sentence... 我聽不懂 sounds like it would imply that I heard what was said, but wasn't able to understand it (transliteration - "I hear, not understand") -- which seems to be the opposite of what you're saying. Could you clearify?

Also, is there is simple rule of when to use 沒 versus when to use 不?

Youshen

[cui ruide]

To nipponman:

Yeah, I understand about the compliments, I suppose it was a bad example of what I was thinking. What I'm talking about is how when you have a time or setting for the sentence, you shouldn't necessarily use 沒有/了. An attempt at an example (my problem being I'm not certain when it's okay to do it...): 我昨天復習一點兒中文 (with no 了). It's the tricky part of dealing with an aspect language; something hasn't necessarily been completed or maybe it's not important if it was, but it did occur in the past... Thus I was uncertain whether I should say 聼不懂 or 沒聼懂.

To Song You Shen:

昨天你/你昨天: No real difference; typically time follows the subject unless you want to emphasize it.

听得懂: able to understand (by hearing/listening)

听不懂: unable to understand (by hearing/listening)

没听懂: did not understand (by hearing/listening)

听懂了: did understand (by hearing/listening)

It's just the system for verb compliments; those are the four ways they work. Examples of other combinations: 听见了 (to have heard); 看见了 (to have seen); 看懂了 (to have understood by seeing); 吃完了 (to have finished eating).

没(有) and 不:

First, there are two types of verbs; mental and action verbs.

没（有) is the counter to 了. 了 as one of its functions is a marker for the aspect of completion. If the action has been completed, then you use 了. If want to say something was not or is not completed, you use 没(有). You can only do this with action verbs, like 吃饭， 说话， 做功课， etc. Mental verbs, such as 想， 要， 觉得, etc., cannot be completed, so you may only use 不 in this case.

[nipponman]

...but wasn't able to understand it (transliteration - "I hear, not understand") -- which seems to be the opposite of what you're saying. Could you clearify?

Hmm, I don't think I get what you're saying. Well, I make mistakes so just in case, try this sentence on for size:

我想看那個電影﹔可是人太多了﹐沒有看到。

我想看那個電影﹔可是人太多了﹐看不到。

The first one: "I want(ed) to see that movie, but because there were so many people, I didn't see it."

The second one: "I want(ed) to see that movie, but because there were so many people, I couldn't see it."

沒有+resultantive verb implies "didn't do V", V+不+resultantive verb means "cannot do V".

I hope that clears things up.

nipponman

[Song You Shen]

Nippoman, I think the only reason why I can't follow what you're saying sometimes, is because of the language jargon that you use. While in school I never really paid much interest or attention on words like past-perfect, past-partcible, resultantive, etc, etc, etc. So, when these words are used, I don't really understand what they mean. Sorry for needing things dumbed down. But thanks for the help.

Cui used words like "mental" and "action" to describe how to use 没 and 不. I am able to interpret that mental and action verbs are "passive (不)" and "active (没)" verbs. I don't know why this makes more sense, i guess it is just the way that I learn.

So I'm still trying to understand this a little... would these be correct translations:

1) 我听得懂你说什么: "I heard what you said, and could destinguish/decipher/comprehend it" (this would be used if someone was speaking quietly, in a different language, or with an accent, etc).

2) 我听不懂你说什么: "I heard what you said, but couldn't understand/interpret it (this would be used if someone said something in a different language that you didn't know)."

3) 我没听懂你说什么: "I don't know what you said beause I couldn't hear you."

4) 我听懂了你说什么: "I understood what you said" (this would be used to confirm that you understand what someone else is talking about).

Thanks again for all your help...

Youshen

[geraldc]

I think there's quite a few mistakes in this thread, and now I'm going to compound them with my tuppence worth.

昨天你说什么 is "what was it you said yesterday?"

If if I was going to ask someone to clarify what they said to me the day before I'd try something like "昨天你跟我说什么? 因为我不太清楚" What was it you said to me yesterday, because I'm not very clear on it.

I think for half the examples given 因为 would be better than 不过,但是 or 可是. Unless you were stating you heard what they said, but you didn't understand.

You need to go over the meanings of 什么

[chenpv]

song you shen, 但是，可是 have the same meaning and usually are used with '虽然' as a team. while 但是 implies you have known the result. but 可是 shows the result is out of your expectation.

eg. 虽然他病得很重，但是依然坚持工作。(it means that u have predicted his act and u use 但是 to show your respect. )

虽然他病得很重，可是依然坚持工作。(it means that u didnt know he would do that and u use 可是 to show your surprise.)

我要十一点钟或者十二点钟吃午饭。

this sentence is grammatically right, but meaningfully wrong. '要' means ‘ have decided to’it doesnot comply with '或者'。so you can replace it with '想'

[Song You Shen]

If if I was going to ask someone to clarify what they said to me the day before I'd try something like "昨天你跟我说什么? 因为我不太清楚" What was it you said to me yesterday, because I'm not very clear on it.

I think for half the examples given 因为 would be better than 不过,但是 or 可是. Unless you were stating you heard what they said, but you didn't understand.

haha, wow, I totally messed that one up... the original sentence I used was given to my by a Chinese person (thoughI don't know if they understood what i was trying to convey). In this thread I forgot to use "跟我" in the sentence... woops... I actually knew that was supposed to be in there. The example that you gave (昨天你跟我说什么? 因为我不太清楚) is great! Unfortunately I didn't have "清楚" in my vocabulary. The sentence I was trying to ask was "Yesterday you said something, but I didn't understand (couldn't interpret) what you said."

Thanks for the corrections geraldc.

Youshen

[chenpv]

So I'm still trying to understand this a little... would these be correct translations:

1) 我听得懂你说什么: "I heard what you said, and could destinguish/decipher/comprehend it" (this would be used if someone was speaking quietly, in a different language, or with an accent, etc).

2) 我听不懂你说什么: "I heard what you said, but couldn't understand/interpret it (this would be used if someone said something in a different language that you didn't know)."3) 我没听懂你说什么: "I don't know what you said beause I couldn't hear you."

4) 我听懂了你说什么: "I understood what you said" (this would be used to confirm that you understand what someone else is talking about).

song you shen, forget all the above and lets begin:

if u understand what others are saying, you reply : 我听懂了 or 我懂了 or 我明白了 or 我清楚了 or 我理解了。

if u dont understand then you reply: 不好意思，我没听清 or 我还不明白 or 我还没弄懂 or 我还没听懂。

and i hope u never use this sentence: 我听不懂你（在）说什么。

eg: 警察：我们发现你和一宗走私案有关系。

police officer: We find out that you are involved with a smuggle case.

男人：我听不懂你在说什么。

man: sorry, i dont know what you are talking about.

[nipponman]

Song You Shen:

This

我听得懂你说什么

is a bad sentence because the English word "what" and the chinese word 什么 have different meanings here. The only way I know how to expalin is that the english word "what" here is not functioning as an interrogative word (a word that asks a question: "what, where, when, why"), but it is functioning as a relative pronoun, (a word that introduces a relative clause, what, that etc.) An english example of both:

interrogative:

What on earth are you doing?(你正幹什麼)

Relative:

What you're saying is hard to understand (the thing that you are saying...)

(你說的話是難聽懂的)

Both function differently but have the same word in English. Chinese, however, lacks relative pronouns and therefore requires the use of clause1+的+Clause2 to show relative clauses.

I hope that helps,

nipponman

p.s. sorry if that sounds too simple!

[cui ruide]

"Cui used words like "mental" and "action" to describe how to use 没 and 不. I am able to interpret that mental and action verbs are "passive (不)" and "active (没)" verbs. I don't know why this makes more sense, i guess it is just the way that I learn."

You may understand me, but now you're using those grammar terms 'passive' and 'active' which in English mean different things:

In English:

You hear me = active

I was heard by you = passive

What I was trying to say by 'mental' and 'active' were literally 'mental' and 'active'. 'Mental verbs' would be words such as 'think', 'feel', 'believe', 'want', 'fear', 'like'--feelings, things you do with your mind. In Chinese, there are no tenses, there are 'aspects.' Some aspects of Chinese: completed, experienced, and probability. The 'completed' aspect is very similar to a past tense, but it's not quite the same thing. You cannot say you were running (in the past tense), you can only say you have 'completed running' (completed 了, 沒(有)) or at one time or another you 'have experienced running' (experienced 过， 没...过). In Chinese, you cannot complete some action in your mind. You cannot complete thinking something, you cannot complete believing something, you cannot complete wanting something. In the same way, you cannot have had the experience of thinking something, you cannot have had in the past the experience of wanting something (though this may seem to make sense to us English speakers); the Chinese do not think this way. Thus, mind/mental verbs are unbeginning and unending, and thus you can only use 不.

'Active verbs' are those that actually take place in the real world, like running, eating, selling, buying, renting, writing, reading, watching, going, coming, etc. You can complete these and you can have experienced these in the past.

I hope that clears something up if anything needed to be cleared up.

[atitarev]

The topic of expressing in Chinese of "being able to do something" was addressed, so I thought I'd ask about the usage of 下 in that sense.

我吃不下了! I can't eat any more!

这个房间只放得下... This room can only hold...

I found these examples in a textbook and Wenlin translates some combinations correctly but I couldn't find this meaning of 下 in dictionaries. How common is it? Can you use 不下 and 得下 with other verbs meaning - be able, be unable to do something?

[Song You Shen]

What I was trying to say by 'mental' and 'active' were literally 'mental' and 'active'. 'Mental verbs' would be words such as 'think', 'feel', 'believe', 'want', 'fear', 'like'--feelings, things you do with your mind. In Chinese, there are no tenses, there are 'aspects.' Some aspects of Chinese: completed, experienced, and probability. The 'completed' aspect is very similar to a past tense, but it's not quite the same thing. You cannot say you were running (in the past tense), you can only say you have 'completed running' (completed 了, 沒(有)) or at one time or another you 'have experienced running' (experienced 过， 没...过). In Chinese, you cannot complete some action in your mind. You cannot complete thinking something, you cannot complete believing something, you cannot complete wanting something. In the same way, you cannot have had the experience of thinking something, you cannot have had in the past the experience of wanting something (though this may seem to make sense to us English speakers); the Chinese do not think this way. Thus, mind/mental verbs are unbeginning and unending, and thus you can only use 不.

'Active verbs' are those that actually take place in the real world, like running, eating, selling, buying, renting, writing, reading, watching, going, coming, etc. You can complete these and you can have experienced these in the past.

Very interesting. This is extremely helpful and will take me a while to digest. This is exactly what I need to learn. Do you have a resource, or know of one, that simplifies grammar like you have just done? I would really enjoy learning about how to use 'aspects' instead of 'tenses.'

For a long time I have been looking for resources that can help me learn how to think in Chinese, rather than just transliterate from English into Chinese. Does anyone have any good resources that might help with this?

Youshen

[geraldc]

Mental verbs, such as 想， 要， 觉得, etc., cannot be completed, so you may only use 不 in this case.

"没想到=didn't expect" blows that one out the window.

There's a line in Revenge of the Sith, where Obi Wan Kenobi says "only the Sith deal in absolutes", Chinese is a lot like that, there are no absolutes, you don't get hard and fast rules and everything's a bit fuzzy.

If you really want to get to grips with grammar, go for the HSK books, and work through the exercises. It's boring, but eventually you get a feel for it.

[cui ruide]

Yeah, but I guess first-year students like me deal a bit better with absolutes before figuring out the exceptions.

Song You Shen, these are just things I learned over time from my teachers. Sorry I can't recommend any materials; I don't even where in my text books this sort of stuff would be. We always used the books as an aid to the classroom, rather than the other way around.

[Song You Shen]

Yes, you must first learn how to use something... then you can learn the exceptions. If you learn it the other way around, it can be almost impossible to keep track of. I totally understand what you're talking about Cui. Some of the "understandings" that I have about Chinese that have really stuck with me, have been simple things that my teacher taught me... not from something straight from a book. I guess it's the personal application that really helps me learn...

Youshen