Corrections · 9
confused about the usage of you(third tone).
你们好。I was reading a grammar book and found a word you(third tone) used in two diffrent sentences.wo(3) you(3) San(1) ben(3) shu(1) which means I have three books and nar(4) you(3) hua(1) which means there's a flower over there.I am confused about the usage of you(3).Why does it have different meaning even though the tone is same in both cases?
有 has only one meaning in Chinese. It means "to have". The problem is in English because of the way things are expressed.
我有三本書 , I have three books.
那辺有花, Over there have flowers However, it is bad English to use "have" here. Proper English demands that "are" be used because "over there" is not a living creature capable of possession. The same sentence can also be translated as "Over there, flowers exist".
Chinese has no singular, plural distinction or tenses in their verbs. Depending on context, 有 can be use to denote "has", "have", "had", "is", "are", "were". For tense distinction, explicit time indicators are used.
Just because 有 can be translated as 'have', does not mean it can't be translated other ways. We have to change how we translate it in the second sentence because we can't say 'over there have a flower' in English. 有 can be has, have, there is, there are, exists and so on.
chinese is totally different from western languages. in chinese, many characters could have the same tone even if they have different meanings.
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