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Questions tagged [past-tense]

34 questions
11
votes
6 answers

How do you specify past tense for 是?

For example, 'She was a good teacher' ? Any and all translations I get are '她是好老师'. Is there anyway to indicate past tense explicitly?
athousandcups
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6
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3 answers

有一天: past as well as future?

I'm told that to express something as "one day" in the future, it's 「有一天」. For example, 「我希望有一天能够说好华语。」"I hope that one day I can speak Chinese well." Would you also use this to the English idiom "one day" in the past, such as "One day, the boy went…
nickcoxdotme
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5
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3 answers

Can you use 希望 for actions in the past?

For example, if I want to say "I wish I learned Chinese when I was little", is it ok to say "我希望我小的时候学中文"? If not, is there another word I could use instead? Possibly "我最好小的时候学中文"? Or do I need to entirely rephrase and say something like…
williamlue929
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4
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3 answers

What's the role of 曾经 in 他曾经在北京学过两年汉语?

In this sentence: 他曾经在北京学过两年汉语。 what's the role of 曾经? I understand that 过 already implies that the action happened in the past.
dusan
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4
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3 answers

Still confused about putting 了 at the end of a sentence or right after the verb

Obviously this question is very similar to When should 了 be after the verb and when should it be at the end of the sentence?. I just wanted you to know that I consulted that before I posted this question. I'm working through Rosetta Stone and I have…
Kevin Thompson
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1
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5 answers

Is it correct ot use 以前 in sentence with meaning of future plans 我以前打算去北京?

Is it correct ot use 以前 in sentence with meaning of future plans 我以前打算去北京? 我打算去北京 - I am going to go to Beijing Will it become: 我以前打算去北京 - Before I was going to go to Beijing Or do I need to replace "打算去北京" part to also express past tense?
Ivan Gerasimenko
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1
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2 answers

Proper use of 了 in Chinese

For my Chinese language class, I need to go through this practice worksheet and fill out which uses of 了 are correct. However, while I think I know decently when to use 了， I am not sure about some of my answers, as we have not discussed some things…
cls0
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