(REVISED) Please give grammar help!!!

Ideal comment method:

1) Present Tense (No comments thus far)

I read books.

我看书。

• Is the translation grammatically correct? Yes it is. (Or no because blah blah blah)
  
• Does the translation convey the original English meaning?  Yes it does.  (Or no because blah blah blah)
• Is the translation relatively natural (or at least not unbearably awkward)?  Looks fine.  (Or no because blah blah blah)
• Do you know an easier way?  Nope.  (Or yes because blah blah blah)

PS: You can comment however you like and it would be equally appreciated, but for clarity purposes it would be better if comments were in this format :).

changye:

要是你喜欢语法的话，我就坚持继续学习语法。你是我的偶像，你真有掌握外语的天赋。

Grammar haters:

我知道有的人看不起语法，这个部分没关系，各人有各人的想法，但是我觉得最好是你们讨厌语法的人证明你们自己的中文能力这么优秀的，应该更多用中文表示你们的看法吧!

(By the way, this challenge is all in good humor.)

tanqingyun

Thanks for your input, but according to context could a person understand?

比如 “你什么时候吃饭？” “我六点吃饭”

但是我觉得最好是回答“我今天六点吃饭”

Courtesy of lujiaojie (this was placed in the old post)

Hi xiaophil ,

Present Tense
I read books.
我看书。(OK)

Present Continuous Tense
I am reading a book.
我在看书。(OK)
I am reading a book tomorrow.
我明天会看着书。Should be 我明天会看书。“着” used after a verb or adiective to indicate the continuation of a state.

Present Perfect Tense
I have read that book.
我看过那本书。(OK)

Present Perfect Continuous Tense
I have been reading that book.
我最近在看着那本书。should be 我最近在看那本书。no need to add “着”。could be 那本书我正看着呢。

Past Tense
I read that book.
我看了那本书。or  我看过那本书。

Past Continuous Tense
I was reading that book.
我以前看那本书。should be 那时我正在看那本书。那时means "at that time".

Past Perfect Tense
I had read that book.
我已经看了那本书了。or 我已经看过那本书了。

Past Perfect Continuous Tense
I had been reading that book.
我以前看着那本书了。should be 那时我一直在看那本书。

Future Tense
I will read that book.
我会看那本书。(ok)

Future Continuous Tense
I will be reading a book.
我会看着书。should be 我会看书。no need to add “着”。

Future Perfect Tense
I will have finished reading that book by 10 pm.
我十点会看完那本书了。should be 我10点会看完那本书。no need to add “了”。There is 会看完，not 已经看完了。“已经...了” is a sentence pattern.

Future Perfect Continuous Tense
I will have been reading that book for 2 weeks.
到那个时候我已经看了那本书两个星期。should be 到那个时候我已经看了两个星期那本书了。or 到那个时候，那本书我已经看了两个星期了。(There should be a "le" at the end of sentence to indicate Continuous.)

The original post can be found here: http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/5437

Thanks so much!

Many thanks to Jiaojie 老师 and Xiaophil for this! I'm going to read these over more closely later this evening.

Regarding these two:

Past Continuous Tense
I was reading that book.
那时我正在看那本书。  那时means "at that time".

Past Perfect Continuous Tense
I had been reading that book.
那时我一直在看那本书。

Could they be written without the 那时?  Or would that be context-dependent and not really possible to express in stand-alone sentences like these?

Hi zhenlijiang

If you don't use 那时, the two example sentences become "present continuous tense" and "present perfect continuous tense" ones respectively. In these examples, 那时 is the only word that implies "past".

zhenlijiang：

changye is correct.

1) Present Tense
I read books.
我看书。(OK)
2) Present Continuous Tense
I am eating food.
我正在吃饭。or 我在吃饭。
着 always used with "呢" to indicate that an action is in the progress. 正 can be used with “着呢”。"我正吃着饭呢。"depend on a context, may be 我正吃着饭呢, so I can't answer the phone.
I am eating at 6 o'clock.
You are right. 我六点吃饭. is the best one.
3) Present Perfect Tense (Received comments, but the more the merrier)
I have read that book.
我看过那本书了。(OK)
4) Present Perfect Continuous Tense
I have been watching a lot of TV.
我最近在看很多电视。最近can be several days, so no need to add "着”。
5) Past Tense
I read that book.我看了那本书。(OK)

6) Past Continuous Tense

I was reading a letter.我以前写着一封信。should be我那时正在读一封信。or 我那时正在读着一封信。着 can be used with "正在" to indicate that an action is in the progress.

7) Past Perfect Tense
I had read that book.
我已经看了那本书了。(OK)

8) Past Perfect Continuous Tense
I had been reading that book.
那时我一直在读那本书。( here 那时 can be several days.)

9) Future Tense
I will read that book.
我会看那本书。or 我会看那本书的。的 can be used at the end of a statement that not happened to indicate certainty.

10) Future Continuous Tense
I will be listening to my MP3 player.
我会听着我的MP3。This sentence is not complete, that could be 8点的时候， 我会听着我的MP3去上班。or something.

11) Future Perfect Tense
I will have finished reading that book by 10 pm.
我十点会看完那本书了。should be 我十点会看完那本书。
No need to add "了" .

12) Future Perfect Continuous Tense
When the clock strikes 7, I will have been listening to that man for two hours.
到7点，我就会听着那位男人两个小时了。
should be 到7点的时候，我就听了两个小时那个男人的歌了。(here the second了 indicate Continuous)

Changye and Jiaojie, thank you for your replies.  I can see that if you simply remove the 那时 from those sentences as they are, you have nothing to indicate they refer to the past.

What I meant by my question was, is there no way to express these without using 那时?
I was reading that book.
I had been reading that book.

(Again, I guess with context it would be different from trying to make these stand-alone sentences work in the way we mean.)

lujiaojie

多多谢谢你！我非常激动，你的解决很有用。

第六个我写错，应该是“I was writing a letter."我觉得“我那时正在写一封信”合适，是吗？

第十个肯定不完成吗？比如：

甲：你今晚干什么？

乙：我会听着我的MP三。

第十二个，我可不可以说“到7点的时候，我就听了两个小时那个男人的话了”？(When the clock strikes 7, I will have been listening to that man (talk)for two hours.)

Question: I personally think that I am trying too hard to force English grammar into Chinese grammar, and that it would be good enough to say 我六点吃饭.  Am I right?not really."我六点吃饭"常常表示“i often eat at 6 o'clock"

You're doing very well so far. One more question and your exam will be over.however you must answer correctly to pass.

can you give me an example of  'past future but not too perfect present discontinued continuing i'm presently very tense' sentence?

学生望着教授发呆

对了，考通了，恭喜恭喜！

chinese students of english learn and memorize no less than 16 tenses. analysing（the origin of this word looks suspicious to me) these tense rules and exceptions to the rules would even confuse shakespeare.

Hi miantial

I'm afraid your English is too difficult for me.

Hi changye,

that's my point regarding grammar-centric language aquisition.

another point i tried to make, and you have indirectly pointed out, is that one can play with one's grammar anyway one likes to,and still be understood by most native speakers. if one wants to make up a word for a single usage in some satire or joke one can. accordingly, how do you teach non-native speakers to comprehend meanings derived from such breaking of the rules? I'd say only through experience.

yoda(ugly looking bald, big-eared, short, fat, green creature in star-wars)  is easily understood by walking talking english speaking toddlers.(to be fair, yoda simply reverses subject/object syntax).

Here we go again! Each time a poddie wants to learn grammar at Cpod the gammar haters crawl out from their caves to spew their wisdom on the futility of learning Chinese via the grammar route. They flame the familiar signal ... if you are interested in gammar, don't come to Cpod, unless you are willing to fight us. 

The Chinese permanent residents in Canada can be generally categorized into two groups - those who have studied English formally, and those who have not. The ones who speak and write good English not only are very well integrated in the society, many of them also hold high paying jobs. The rest remain in pockets of Chinese communities in stores and businesses as owners, workers, or servers. I heard that in China it is very difficult and unlikely for foreigners to work in large native companies.

Xiaophil is a young guy who is trying to learn Chinese properly, so please butt out.

I guess I'm now in for a fight... what are the words I should be using.. . ahh.. here they are

pick up some shielas

chase the fillies

feed the chooks

go trolloping

look for some arse

@pauli

你懂个屁你呀！每一次发帖子都不敢写中文，你有什么资格来批评我啊？我那里说语法不重要？你好像还对我抱着仇恨，是吗？小孩子，别响了！

Hi miantiao

哈哈，你还是老样子，我放心了！

Hi changye

哈哈，江山易改，本性难移。

I don't think that you should adhere to grammar rules at the early stage of learning Mandarin, but you would find that comprehensive knowledge of grammar is very important when you are an intermediate (and above) learner, or at least it won't hurt you. If you are a linguistically talented guy, just forget about grammar. You might be able to master Mandarin through practice without flipping grammar books. Unfortunately, the "A saint's made quotes Latin" strategy doesn't work for me, who started learning Mandarin after turning forty.

Hi zhenlijiang

I don't think you can make them "past tense" sentences without adding words that indicate time, which is an important characteristics of Mandarin. Here is another example.

我是一个学生。
I'm a student.

十年前我是一个学生。
I was a student ten years ago.