When should I use 里 and 中？

You see,the film is in a screen,you can use 里,means "in"

and the game is playing,you can use 中,means "during"

个人见解～

I know this post is only about 里 and 中, but as already mentioned I also think a lot about the choice of 上, and also 之间.

Noticed this in a comment of David's today:

她老是在工作上生活中感到有压力

How effortlessly native speakers do this!

There is a QW? It seems to me I remember it now, but when I used the search function, I couldn't find it. I'll search harder. Thanks!

UPDATE: Ah yes, found it. Seems like a useful lesson. However, it seems mostly concerned with concrete objects rather than occurrences in time. Will give it a listen, though.

I know what you mean. I made this lesson request six months ago:

LEVEL: QW

TOPIC: Reviewing how to say "In ~" "On ~".

NOTES: How to say for instance, "the author discusses this point extensively IN this paragraph". Can't seem to think of any other examples now. I'm not sure when 里 / 上 / 当中 etc. are most appropriate, when 在 is/isn't needed and such. Hope my meaning is clear.

I think that you can use both 里 and 中 in your example sentences，and 中 is more formal than 里.

电影里的暴力镜头/那次军事体育比赛中/在人类的漫长历史中

in this paragraph ...... 在这个段落中(里)........?

Hi xiaophil,

I don't have a good answer but I found these examples on nciku:

In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.

在人类（和动物）的漫长历史中，那些懂得有效协作与随机应变的往往占据着优势。

history1
history2

There is a QW on 里, 内 and 中 in the cpod archive.

The best I could come up with myself was "还没有人去过Mars"...

Dunderklumpen I'm getting slightly different numbers from yours so maybe I'm doing it a bit differently (a different google? I don't know).
I just wanted to ask, if you have the time could I bug you to also run the same search for

"在人类的历史上"?
I think that will also get a lot of hits.
Also "在人类历史上".

I also think 历史中 is more appropriate than 历史里, especially in the case such as "历史中的演变", but I think you can also say 历史里. As for 比赛中(or 里), I think both can mean "in" and "during".

I feel like 中 is the correct choice for expressing events, processes in progress.  See below.

1. This area is under construction.
2. The football game is in progress.
3. They are in a meeting.

I'm less sure about something more abstract, though.

1. Jerry is in the middle of a difficult time in his life.  (This one is tricky because notice to 'in's.)
   
2. Please wait.  I'm in the middle of dealing with something.

Luckily, the last two can be expressed in a simpler way that avoids using 'in' or 'in the middle of', but I think the sentences would be less expressive.

Any ideas?  Agree?  Disagree?

Hi xiaophil

Honestly, the more I think about this issue, the more confused I become.

I guess that we should consider "a noun + 中(里)" and "a verb + 中" separately, although in fact the line between a noun and a verb is often not so clear in Chinese. Unlike 中，"里" can't be placed after a verb.

As xiaphil says, "中" connotes/emphasizes "process", and I think it's more true mainly when 中 is placed after a verb, just like “交谈(verb..?)中，我们发现了一个问题” and “会议正在进行(verb)中”.

As for "a noun + 中（里）", I don't see much difference between, for example, 比赛中 and 比赛里. If anything, it's a matter of formality. 里 is more colloquial than 中. For the record, you can say both 过程(process)中 and 过程里.

Xiaophil, if you go with this phrase "在人类的历史_", 中 seems to be the right word to end it with. I got 100000+ hits on google for "在人类的历史中",
6000+ hits for 里 and no hits for 内.