Use of 過 in sentences with multiple verbs

freddy1705
 July 02, 2010, 11:15 AM posted in I Have a Question

大家好

I have a grammar question. The experiential marker guo 過 is added after the verb as we have all learned...

But what if a sentence contains more than one verb. To give an example: "Have you been to this restaurant and tried their food.". We have the experience of going to a place PLUS the experience of trying their food. Having learned Chinese in Taiwan I know that the correct, albeit "台灣國語" version is: 你有沒去那家餐廳吃過她們的菜 nǐ yǒu měi yǒu qù nà jiā cāntīng chīguo tāmen de cài but this is unacceptable in "proper" mandarin.

Would you say 你去過那家飯店嘗過她們的菜嗎  nǐ qùguo nà jiā fàndiàn chǎngguo tāmen de cài or use just one guò and say 你去那家飯店嘗過她們的菜嗎 nǐ qù nà jiā fàndiàn chǎngguo tāmen de cài

or use one guò only and put it behind qù 去 ?

Which one sounds more native?

Thanks for your input

Freddy 阿賓

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freddy1705
 July 02, 2010, 11:39 AM

...or, to make a comment to my own question, maybe it would be easier to just drop the 去 qu4, since having tried the food presuposes having gone there, and just say 你嘗過那家的菜嗎 ni3 chang3guo na4 jia1 de cai4 ma?

I have studied Chinese for a long time now but I can never shake the feeling that my sentences are loaded with errors...

Cheers 阿賓

 

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suansuanru
 July 03, 2010, 04:17 PM

i agree with freddy1705.你尝过那家的菜吗is suitable here.

and i recommend you to say"你去那家餐厅吃过吗？"if you insist to express the meaning of "have been to that restaurant".

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freddy1705

suansuanru,

thanks for your reply, that helped. Do you feel there is a general rule to the "multiple verb guo4 problem", and if so, what is it?

In chinese textbooks for foreigners it seems the use of 過 is always illustrated in single verb examples such as "have you ever been to china?", "have you ever eaten Beijing Duck?" etc.

Maybe other users can come up with other "multiple verb guo4" examples.

感謝大家

阿賓

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freddy1705

還有

to you as a native speaker what would change if instead of saying "你去那家餐厅吃过吗？" as you suggested if you heard "你去過那家餐厅吃飯吗？"

cheers

阿賓

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suansuanru

阿賓：

你好，我觉得对外国学生来说，”过“的确很难。同样难的还有”了“的用法。

And about the question above, I don't think"你去過那家餐厅吃飯吗？"make sense. I don't know the situation in Taiwan,but we don't say it like this in mainland.

e.g.你去那家理发店理过发吗？

你去星星公园跑过步吗？

and now you can find that 吃饭、理发、跑步are one kind of words which are called the VO type in modern Chinese.

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freddy1705
 August 08, 2010, 11:42 AM

Suansuanru

感謝妳的解釋.

阿賓