One of the problem I see in the Chinese style English is the tendency to set a time reference at the begining of the sentence like, now, today, yesterday, two hours ago, etc. The simplist solution is to move the time reference to the back of the sentence or delete it altogether.
What the Chinese failed to realize is that time reference is part of the tenses structure in the English language. Since the Chinese language is without tenses therefore there is a need to define time at begining of the paragraph.
For example:
Yesterday I had dinner with my mother.
I had dinner with my mother yesterday.
Now, it is time for us to look into the experiment result.
This line is a direct translation from Chinese. Please comments on what you would have done to make it more English like.
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3 comments:
This is how I would have expressed myself:
"It is now time for us to look into the result of the experiment"
As a beginner in chinese studies I think it´s also hard to convert english sentences to chinese with the right time reference. For instance it can be tricky to know where and when you should use the 了-ending.
Anyway, this is how I would have said the sentence:
"Now´s the time for us to look into the result of the experiment."
I would make this mistake.><
Sometimes it is really hard for us to know what is wrong with sentence.(sign)
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