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translation challenge

Robert-C7

Robert-C7

Here are a series of sentences to translate to Chinese.  The first two are pretty straight forward.  The last one not so.

1. The man and woman are eating sandwiches.
2. The man and woman are eating lunch outside.
3. The man and woman are eating sandwiches for lunch outside.
 
handyman

handyman

This might be correct.
3. 男人和女人在之外都吃午餐的三明治。
handyman

handyman

Let me correct that, the sentence should read as follows:
男人和女人在外面吃三明治午餐
 
Erubar

Erubar

你好!I cannot translate any of those because I have not learned the translation of "sandwich".
I can do "Women are drinking tea.", though.
女人在喝茶。 
nvren zai he cha. 
I hope to learn to translate "sandwich" soon. Then I can say
我在吃sandwich。
wo zai chi sandwich.
I hope to talk to you more soon!
Erubar
Eleanor-Rocket-Chinese-Tutor

Eleanor-Rocket-Chinese-Tutor

Robert handyman & Erubar 你们好,

Thank you for the question and responses. A more nuanced translation would probe further into "the" man and woman since the Chinese equivalence is either the very formal 男士 (nánshì) 女士 (nǚshì) or a more generalized term that refer to all men --男人-- and all women --女人--. Therefore, if no other context is provided, "the man and woman" would be better understood in Chinese as either "this" man and woman or "that" man and woman.

And here's how those 3 sentences would be under that premise:

1) 这个 (this)/那个 (that) 男人和女人在吃三明治。
     Zhège/nàgè nánrén hé nǚrén zài chī sānmíngzhì。
2) 这个/那个男人和女人在外头吃午餐。
     Zhège/nàgè nánrén hé nǚrén zài wàitou chī wǔcān。
3) 这个/那个男人和女人在外头吃三明治当午餐。
     Zhège/nàgè nánrén hé nǚrén zài wàitou chī sānmíngzhì dāng wǔcān。

当 (dāng) in the last sentence means "for" or "as" which indicates their lunch is the sandwich they are eating.

Please give a shout out if anything from the translation needs more explanation!


Eleanor :)

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