to happen TO

go_manly
 August 15, 2010, 04:15 PM posted in I Have a Question

How do you say something happened TO someone?

The scenario I'm thinking of is as follows:

My Chinese teacher asks the class:

谁有一件坏事可以告诉我们？

Then I ask:

什么样的坏事，_______的还是自己做的？

I'm trying to say "What type, something bad that happened to me, or something bad that I've done?"

How should I say that?

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bodawei
 August 15, 2010, 10:37 AM

我所遇到的不好的事 

wo suo yùdào (to encounter) de bu hao de shi 

(something bad happened to me) 

比如，

这是我所遇到的最不好的事，

(this is the worst thing that happened to me！)  

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go_manly

Thanks bodawei, but what does the 所 do here? I haven't seen it used like this before.

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bodawei

I think you can think of it as 'that' or 'that which' in English - 'that' situation which I encountered / happened to me .. is bad...

but I'm really hoping someone who understands grammar will explain it for both of us!

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zhenlijiang
 August 17, 2010, 06:16 PM

Bodawei's suggestion is good. I was part of a discussion about this 所 somewhere some time ago * edit--I knew we talked about this before! see this convo. Changye came along and said it seems a bit more formal to him to put the 所 there and that it isn't necessary.

I have a feeling though you're looking for an expression like this:

在我身上发生的

I've heard this 在你的身上～ used in lessons by Jenny.

So I guess you'd ask the teacher some variation of:

在我身上发生的，还是我自己做的，坏事？

As always, looking forward to corrections/additions!

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danchao
 August 18, 2010, 02:09 AM

You can say 我受到的坏事 wǒ shòu dào de huài shì (the bad things that I've suffered)

Or 对我做的坏事 duì wǒ zuò de huài shì (the bad things done to me)

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lujiaojie
 August 18, 2010, 02:37 AM

You can say:

什么样的坏事，发生在我身上的坏事，还是我自己干的坏事？

Shénmeyàng de huàishì，fāshēng zài wǒ shēnshang de huàishì，háishi wǒzìjǐ gàn de huàishì？

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go_manly
 August 18, 2010, 02:52 AM

Thanks jiaojie, danchao, zhenlijiang and bodawei for your input.

Just wondering - zhenlijiang's suggestion is basically the same as jiaojie's, but the word order is different. Are both orders OK?

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lujiaojie

zhenlijiang's sentence is also correct, but no need a comma between "还是我自己做的" and "坏事".

You can say:

在我身上发生的(坏事），还是我自己做的坏事？