since - until

deanw
December 05, 2010, 03:32 AM posted in I Have a Question

How do you say in Chinese:

Tomorrow it will be 6 weeks since I ...

or

Tomorrow it will be 6 weeks until I ...

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xiaophil
December 05, 2010, 06:12 AM

Hmmm... this is hard.  I'll try.

Tomorrow it will be 6 weeks since I ...

我自从明天已经过了六个星期了,并且...

Tomorrow it will be 6 weeks until I ...

我明天要过六个星期,然后...

These are just guesses to get the ball rolling.

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bodawei
December 05, 2010, 07:10 AM

I think that there will be several ways of expressing these - I will start with the simplest I can think of (very close to xiaopil's):  

我[XX]到明天已经六个星期了。 (I don't think you have to explicitly translate the 'since' but look forward to being corrected..) 

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light487

Some entries from my dictionary:

从此 [從-] cóng cǐ /from now on/since then/henceforth/

自此 zì cǐ /since then/henceforth/

自从 [-從] zì cóng /since (a time)/ever since/

以降 yǐ jiàng /since (some point in the past)/

以来 [-來] yǐ lái /since (a previous event)/

由于 [-於] yóu yú /due to/as a result of/thanks to/owing to/since/because/

The only example I can find uses 以来 but all the other ones I found didn't even bother with a "since" word as it was just implied by the sentence.

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bodawei

Thanks light, but I purposely had a stab at something I didn't have to go to a dictionary for. :)

I don't think I could use these words in the sentence given, not with any confidence. Does it have sample sentences like the ones above?

[And the last one is a different meaning of since; = because. I think I have only seen it used in writing].

I wanted to see if you really need to translate 'since'. My offering says .. come tomorrow [something that I did or I have been suffering perhaps] has been already going on for six weeks.

Whether it is passable? Hopefully someone will come along and pass judgement.

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light487

Yer.. I understand.. sorry.. I was trying to use my own method of translating. What I tend to do is pull out my dictionary and then see which words fit better than the others. This is all provided the translations in the reference material (ie. dictionary) is correct to begin with and has enough distinction within the translation to have a go at working out the differences.. but then sometimes, as with this example there just isn't a word, or more accurately a point to having the word, that is of any use.

The meaning is implied.. this is probably the trickiest thing to translate in any language I think.. the implied meaning of something.

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bodawei
December 05, 2010, 07:31 AM

I would take a different approach on this one, using the verb 等: 

我从明天等六个星期,就/才。。(Tomorrow it will be six weeks until I ...)

I would hope to be understood but I think there will be much cleverer solutions.  And probably a number of possibilities.  

 

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light487

Hehe yes.. this is how I learn most of my new, subtle-meaning, vocab.. by taking a stab at what I think it is.. and basically using cave-man Chinese, being corrected and learning the proper way to say it..

Not that your response is cave-man.. just saying that is how I usually learn the subtle stuff :)

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zhenlijiang
December 05, 2010, 10:56 AM

I'll have a go at the second one. Say it's "Tomorrow it will be six weeks until my departure":

到明天,离出发还有六个星期。

等明天,离出发还有六个星期。

Or be simpler.
明天离出发还有六个星期。

Any of these any good??  I wonder if I've added some unwanted nuance with 还有 (implying "still another six whole weeks"?), where the original English sentence is neutral?

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deanw
December 06, 2010, 12:42 AM

Thanks for all the input.

Can the words 直到 and 等到 be used here for until?

Also the word 以来 mentioned above sounds like the right meaning. Can it be used for since in this example?

If you are a native speaker, feel free to offer up a suggestion.

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zhenlijiang
December 06, 2010, 10:07 AM

Hope an expert can weigh in re these questions!

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John
December 07, 2010, 06:00 AM

From the mouth of Jiaojie:

"Tomorrow it will be 6 weeks since I came to China."

到明天,我来中国就六个星期了。

"Tomorrow it will be 6 weeks until I go back to my own country."

从明天起,再过六个星期我就回国了。

Connie and Jiaojie found the specificity of those statements quite amusing, though. You can tell that it's a way of thinking (a 思路) that they're not used to.

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bodawei

Thanks a lot guys. I'm pretty happy with my suggestion for the first sentence; the second one I was less confident for good reason. Oh, now I have a connection though with 从明天起,再过.. I have never come across the 起,再过... used this way but we see prices marked $X起 everywhere ($X and up...) So this is like saying 从明天起.. (from tomorrow and up...) 再过六个星期我就 (to a point six weeks way, then) [do something]. I'm going to forget most of this, but I will remember the 从明天起...

Interesting about not thinking this way - that's why it is such a stretch to express this stuff?

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deanw

Thanks for those answers. I would never have guessed them.

In the first sentence does 就 mean 就是? If not, what then?

In the second sentence, what is the function of the 起? I'm also confused about the placement of the 了. I would have thought it should belong after the 过. I can't make sense of it where is.

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zhenlijiang

Thank you John and Jiaojie.

Connie and Jiaojie found the specificity of those statements quite amusing, though. You can tell that it's a way of thinking (a 思路) that they're not used to.

Which reminds me of this exchange in Xiaophil's grammar question post last year. I guess we need to be reminded periodically. So Chinese teachers must think we foreign learners can be pretty anal when it comes to talking about time (they're too polite though, and will say only that it's "funny" of us).

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lujiaojie

In the first sentence, “就” indicates a tone of certainty.

In the second sentence, “起” means “开始”。从明天起=从明天开始。