Is there any word for ‘about’

[albatross]

How would you say things like “I’ll tell you about that time” or “what was the book about” or “I wrote an essay about history”

 

Are there different words for different meanings of ‘about’? Is there a word for it or is it dropped out? How would you structure a sentence?

[somethingfunny]

I think you might be trying to do some literal English to Chinese translation and therefore having a bit of trouble.  There are words that mean "about" (such as 关于) but they won't always be appropriate.  If I read your example sentences and then think about how I'd express the same meaning in Chinese, I get the following:

 

“I’ll tell you about that time XXX” 我跟你讲XXX的时候

“what was the book about” 那本书讲了什么故事

“I wrote an essay about history” 我写了一篇关于历史的论文

 

Now, if I wanted to, I could come up with alternatives for the first two sentences that include the preposition 关于, but I think it would sound a little odd.

[roddy]

Albatross, would you like to put up a new topic introducing yourself, explaining why you're interested in Chinese, what you're hoping to achieve, how you're doing that, etc. We'll be able to tailor answers better if we know what you're up to. 

[Beelzebro]

I'd translate "what was the book about" as 那本书是讲什么的? Also, often in Chinese you can just put what the thing is about directly before it. For example 一篇历史论文 "an essay about history" or "a history essay". 差不多吧. If you really need to include a word for "about" you can use 关于 or 有关. I don't feel qualified to explain which of these is better in which contexts.

[SongSongSong]

As a Chinese, I would say

I’ll tell you about that time：到时候我会告诉你的／到时候我再跟你说／到时候我告诉你

what was the book about：那本书的内容是什么／那本书是讲什么的／那本书说了啥／那本书是关于什么的

I wrote an essay about history：我写了篇关于历史论文／我写了篇历史论文

[陳德聰]

6 hours ago, SongSongSong said:

I’ll tell you about that time：到时候我会告诉你的／到时候我再跟你说／到时候我告诉你

I think you misunderstood what “about that time” means. 到時候 means “when the time comes,” and “I’ll tell you about that time” is more like 我來告訴你那時候發生了什麼事情.