他陪着太太一起迎接小宝宝的出生。(Tā péizhe tàitài yìqĭ yíngjiē xiăobăobao de chūshēng.) He accompanied his wife to welcome the birth of their child.

我们在人民广场集合，一起出发。(Wŏmen zài Rénmín Guăngchăng jíhé, yìqĭ chūfā.) We met up at People's Square, and set off together.

Both sentences are translated as past tense.

What part of the sentence indicates that the past is being talked about? Especially the first sentence with the 陪着.

Also, absence of present tense markers such as '在陪着' in the first one and '正在……集合' in the second.

Could 了 have been used here?

I have a few culture questions: 

1. Would he say that if we were in an expensive Chinese restaurant? (The restaurant was Indian, and true the dishes are rather expensive.)  

2. If he was shouting me at a Chinese restaurant and I said that would he be offended?  (Assume for the sake of argument that the comment was true.) 

3. Does the fact that I earn a lot more money than him impact on the social niceties?  

租了比买了摩托车好，听说警察可以抓(?)一个摩托车。

I've talked about them with the teachers though, and here's their verdict:

The first sentence, could be either or. It's technically in not in any 'tense', but a 在 before the 陪着, or a 了 after the 迎接 would serve to clarify it as happening right now, or having already happened, respectively.

For the second sentence, if it were in some context that made it obviously in the past, it could be translated as it is. However, without any context at all, the intended meaning, and thus a better translation would be: 'We'll meet at People's Square, and set off together." (like instructions of some sort) I'll go ahead and make that change. Sorry about any confusion this may have caused. Sometimes with single sentences like this, my 语感 (feel for the language) misleads me, as I heard it as a portion of a series of events.

"its a good thing I brought an extra bag of Oreos" or "fold the back seats down, and we'll just sleep in the back of the car" or "when you said we were roughing it, you weren't kidding. How can we deal without a TV?"

To:

"i've got the knife, flints and a bit of rope, so we should be able to make some kind of varmint trap"(We need the Chinese words for varmints and critters).

"There should not be any pit vipers, cobras or other poisonous snakes within 100 miles of here".

"A: Is the water in the stream safe to drink?

B: I don't know, but i'm thirsty"

"Once we get to the top of the ridge, we should be above the tree line, and and at that altitude, we should be able to see for 50 miles"

"Those turkey vultures are flying pretty close"

"Cut the legs off that beetle first, otherwise, he grabs your lips as you start chewing him. ..... that bug tastes as nasty as he looks. Positively disgusting. Lots of grit and gristle".

(Ok this one is from "Man vs. Wild")

...lol. I like your spirit. I also love those words ..varmints and critters...classic....it reminds me of Yosemite Sam.

Guess I'll just have to go again!

It's really wonderful.

Though we got caught in a heavy rain, we had a good time.

迎接(ying2 jie1) often means the host goes in advance to some place to wait and greet the guests. It emphasizes more on the specific action or behavior. 迎接 can also mean to get ready for the arrival of a certain event or a special moment. For example, 迎接世博 (ying2 jie1 shi4 bo2) means get ready and wait for the arrival of World Expo). While 欢迎 (huan1 ying2) means welcome in general, maybe the host didn't do anything just give welcome by applauding or by words. If you come to Shanghai now, you will see a lot of posters saying "上海欢迎您" (shang4hai3 huan1ying2 nin2!) Shanghai Welcome You!

Hope this explanation is helpful. :-)

1) How can I access my bookmarked lessons directly after signing in?

2) Is it possible to have the translation of the dialogue and the expansion hidden as a default setting?

Thank you!

2) Click the little wheel next to "Exercise" tab on the lesson page. You can choose different display settings, e.g. show or hide English translation, simplified or traditional characters.