Tense

go_manly
August 29, 2010, 04:40 AM posted in Grammar Questions

I know Mandarin doesn't use tense. Nevertheless, is someone able to render the following English tenses in Mandarin? I've included the easy examples which I already understand in order to make this complete. Also, I've added words in brackets to make sense of some of the tenses.

1. I am waiting (for you).

2. I waited (for you).

3. I have waited (for you).

4. (By the time you arrived) I had waited (for you for 2 hours).

5. I have been waiting (for you).

6. I will wait (for you).

7. I will be waiting (for you).

8. (If you are late tomorrow) I will have waited (for you too many times).

9. (By the time you get here) I will have been waiting (for you for 3 hours)

Have I missed any?

Perhaps I'm dense, but don't sit on the fence, help me make sense of this wretched tense.

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bababardwan
August 29, 2010, 05:04 AM

..hehe "dense,fence,sense,tense"...hence je pense whence comes one [thou] with such rhyming competense will no doubt without hesitance make sense of the tense predicamence [for this last I have no defence].

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bababardwan

噢,这个悬疑。。等待为答案。 。。。 。

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bababardwan
August 29, 2010, 05:06 AM

Ok, well firstly I suspect Chinese isn't going to have that many ways of expressing tense. I think there is going to be a fair bit of overlap and reliance on context.

1. 我等着

2. 我等了

3. same as above, or something else to emphasise in place of the "have" ..maybe:

我已经等了你

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bababardwan
August 29, 2010, 05:13 AM

4. same as 3 maybe

5. 我一直在等待

6. 我将等...or maybe that should be 我会等

7.我会在等着你

8 我会已经等待了

9. 我会已经等着

ok, they're probably all wrong. But an interesting exercise and starting point for when corrections come along.

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bodawei
August 29, 2010, 01:48 PM

为了回答你等了很久吗? (Have you been waiting long for an answer?)  Sorry - just my little joke.  Here's a few ideas: 

1. 我现在等你 (I am waiting for you) 

2, 3 & 5. 我等了.. (I waited for you/have waited for you/have been waiting for you) 

4. 你倒了以后我等了(两个小时) (By the time you arrived I had waited for a couple of hours)  

6 & 7.  我要等到 (I will wait/will be waiting) 

I have put some of these together because I can't really see the difference. 

Others: 

我等着走呢 (I am waiting to go) 

你得等着 (You'll have to wait)  

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ouyangjun116
August 29, 2010, 02:41 PM

我也试试一下:

1。我在等你

2, 3。我等你来这儿 

4。我等了你两个小时

5。我一直在等你

6, 7。我等你 (或者 - 我会等你)

8。我已经等了你太多次。

9。我已经等了你三个小时

 

我不太清楚那些句子都对了。