Q&A - P4 Chinese

[MdmKS]

acforfamily:

Hi need your help on Chinese.


Can someone tell me how to differentiate between the use of 然后 and 才。
example
1) 我先做完功课，才去看电视。
2）我先做完功课，然后去看电视。
3) 我做完了功课，然后去看电视。

Are they all correct? If not, what should be the correct one?
I just realised that I can't find any thread on Chinese，or maybe I am just blind...

Hi Acforfamily, can you share which one is the answer from your child's teacher?

[acforfamily]

Hi,

Thanks in advance for attempting this.
The paper came back and I realised that it was different. Sorry, I was so confused.

The question was :
…，然后看电视。

What my son wrote was as follows and teacher marked him wrong ( i.e. 0 out of 3 marks)
你要先做功课，然后看电视。

Teacher corrected it to:
他先做功课，然后看电视。

Sample answer given to class was:
我先做完功课，然后看电视。

[Uh-Oh]

acforfamily,

If i were to mark yr child's paper, I would add a \"cai2\" after the \"ran2 hou4\".
Sorry, not able to type in Chinese as my hubby hasn't install the Han Shen for me yet

[acforfamily]

Uh-Oh:

acforfamily,

If i were to mark yr child's paper, I would add a \"cai2\" after the \"ran2 hou4\".
Sorry, not able to type in Chinese as my hubby hasn't install the Han Shen for me yet

Thanks, I thought so too but I don't know how to explain the difference to my son.

[Uh-Oh]

acforfamily:

Uh-Oh:

acforfamily,

If i were to mark yr child's paper, I would add a \"cai2\" after the \"ran2 hou4\".
Sorry, not able to type in Chinese as my hubby hasn't install the Han Shen for me yet

Thanks, I thought so too but I don't know how to explain the difference to my son.

U could probably explain in this manner :
\"ran hou\" can be used when the subject performed more than one action, i.e he does Action, then he does Action B.
Judging fr yr son's answer, it seems that he is writing the scenario of someone giving instructions to another person: the actions hav not really happened already, so he need to add \"cai\". If the actions already taken place. then just use \"ran hou\" is acceptable, e.g: ta xian zuo gong ke, ran hou kan dian shi.

Hope that helps.

[acforfamily]

Thanks uh-oh.


By the way, there is no need to install Han Shen for you to type Chinese if you have microsoft word.
Just need to change your settings for language under the control panel.

[Full.010894Cream]

me only have mediocre chinese but let me try.


然后 - more for a event after another event, or like what was said earlier, action following another action. A sequence of events.

才- somewhat like ‘only when’ or ‘only then’. A conditional result/happening.

[acforfamily]

Full.Cream:

me only have mediocre chinese but let me try.


然后 - more for a event after another event, or like what was said earlier, action following another action. A sequence of events.

才- somewhat like 'only when' or 'only then'. A conditional result/happening.

Thanks Full.Cream,

Just wondering, for English, there are books like Casco or Primary English which teaches us grammar etc. Does anyone know whether there is anything similar for Chinese. Books that will explain the kind of question above?

The current textbook only gives the sentences but does not explain the different usage.

[zest]

The way the teacher amended your boy's answer is appropriate. You boy's sentence started with ni(3) which is not suitable as it's more for a dialogue, otherwise the sentence structure is good. The sample answer is the best

[rains]

Hi hi,

I'm a distinction student for Chinese from psle to A level (must qualify first in this thread I notice).

I'm a techno idiot and I don't know how I can type in Chinese font altho I do have the language tool.

Here goes:

I thought No. 1 and 2 are legitimate. No. 3 doesn't sound natural.

The use of 'ni3' is alright. It has no impact on the sentence.

'cai2' can also be used as 'then', depending on how it is used. Like No. 2.

For Chinese, from what I know, there is no explanation of how the words should be used becos it doesn't have any strict grammatical rules to follow like English. Maybe some dictionaries meant to teach ang mohs would have this function, but I believe it's not common.

Your son's sentence was wrong becos of the 'yao4'. Usually, if a sentence is preceded with 'yao4' eg. ni3 yao4 xian1 zuo4 gong1 ke4, it's followed by 'cai2 neng2 kan4 dian4 shi4', instead of the given sentence. Even then, the better word to use is 'dei3' instead of 'yao4'.

Like English, many Chinese words are paired with others to give a smoother flow to the sentence, eg. 'xian1' with 'ran2 hou4', 'dei3' with 'cai2'. It's more of reading and speaking the language frequently. Only by doing so will you be able to use them naturally, without yourself realising it. I was shocked to see you people trying to explain how 'ran2 hou4' and 'cai2' are used, becos it's not natural at all and Chinese is a very fluid language. You can't fix one word to be used in only certain ways altho there're some that you can. I was at this explaining process only when I attended a Chinese-English translation course. I remember explaining why a sentence with the word 'bei4' ie. 'ta1 bei4 lao3 shi1 cheng1 zan4 le' (he was praised by the teacher) was not appropriate becos 'bei4' has a negative connotation. Other than that, throughout my life of learning Chinese, I'm never asked to explain how it is used or why it is used unless I'm teaching Chinese to a Malay or Caucasian.