Wish

[yonitabonita]

Hey all

A vocab/grammar query: how do you say "I wish" in the context of

1) I wish it hadn't rained today

2) I wish I hadn't gone to town today.

3) I wish it was Christmas today.

I guess the first two have an element of regret to them. But the third?

Thanks for all replies.

[HashiriKata]

My reply is no more than a kind of practise (but hopefully one or two may be correct ):

要是今天没有下雨就好了。

我要是今天没有进城该多好了。

要是今天是圣诞节就好了。

但愿今天是圣诞节！

[WoAiJolinTsai]

Same ^^^ I'm just practicing.

But, I think you can also use xi1 wang4 instead of the 要是...就好了 construction.

比如说：

我希望今天没下雨了

wǒ xīwàng jīntiān méi xiàyǔ le

我希望今天我没去城市

wǒ xīwàng jīntiān wǒ méi qù chéngshì

我希望今天是圣诞节

wǒ xīwàng jīntiān shì shèngdànjié

[yonitabonita]

Thanks for that. I'd thought of the 要是。。。就好了 construction but I figured it's closer to:

"It would be good if..." and not exactly "I wish".

[kudra]

how do you say "I wish" in the context of

1) I wish it hadn't rained today

2) I wish I hadn't gone to town today.

3) I wish it was Christmas today.

I guess the first two have an element of regret to them. But the third?

I'd call myself beginner/intermediate level, but 希望， doesn't sound right to me in this context. 希望 seems to mean wish as in wish/hope. Hope then translates into "That child is very bright(smart), (and so) very promising", 那个孩子很聪明，很有希望。

Seems like 希望 is appropriate when there is a possibility of realizing the desired state. That is not the case with these. I.e., there is no point in hoping it hadn't rained, or that today was Christmas.

Not sure what construction to use here.

Wish here means prefer. How about something like this, (building on HashiriKata)?

对我来,还是今天没有下雨的好.

Which I would have translated as from Chinese as

"As for me, it would have been better if it hadn't rained."

I could be mis-applying the ...,还是...的好. pattern.

If the above is acceptable, perhaps it can be made more idiomatic with something like

我还是今天没有下雨的好.

I'm guessing too. Sorry for the rambling post, didn't mean to hijack the thread.

didn't find anything is necroflux's thread on All grammar rules

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/7962-a-primer-on-simple-chinese-grammar-work-in-progress