怎么 + V 就怎么 + V

cwillfor
 September 04, 2009, 10:37 PM posted in General Discussion

I don't know if this is the right place for this type of question.  I would like to see if some of my fellow poddies can help me understand the pattern found in the following sentence: 你想怎么过就怎么过！ Does anyone know of a lesson that covers this pattern?  谢谢!

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pearltowerpete
 September 07, 2009, 03:04 AM

Hi cwillfor,

Good question.

You probably know that 过 can have different meanings based on context ("to live," "to cross（a street),"etc.)

Here, let's say that it means "to cross a road." So we can translate it as "Cross the street in whatever way you'd like."

How did we get there?

想 to think, but here it means "would like"

怎么 in what way, how

verb XXX -- here, 过

就 difficult to translate, basically it means "just" or "then"

怎么 how

repeat verb XXX (again, 过）

You can substitute all kinds of verbs here, with the effect of "Do XXX as you see fit!"

Please let me know if you have any further questions.