Verb Tenses

[進一步，退一步]

Hello all, this is my first post to chinese forums.

I have been studying chinese for a little over a year, and while my chinese is at this point probably beyond a basic level, I seem to make many of the same (basic) mistakes over and over again -- specifically about verb tenses. What I find particularly frustrating, is a rather dogmatic insistence that chinese has no grammar, no verb tenses, and the general trend that most people (even my teachers) do not seem to understand it, explain it, or teach it. To me it seems clear that, at least on a basic level, 聽過 and 會聽 are two tenses of the verb 聽, if not the same as 'verb conjugation.' I've searched these forums quite a bit over the last year, and I have found a lot of helpful topics. I am thinking that creating a list of the various verb tenses (using a simple verb like 聽) would be extremely helpful ... at least to me! I realize in some cases it may not be quite as easy as 'verb tenses,' but I do think that since the grammar portion of this forum sees a lot of activity, a list like this could serve as an easy resource to answer a of of common questions. I will be happy to start this list, but as I mentioned, I am likely to make quite a few mistakes too.

On another related note, I seem to remember a teacher indicating that using '有 + verb' represents a form of 'recent past' tense, but search as I might, and ask I as I might, I have not found any information on this topic. An example might be '我有聽到' as in 'I heard that (just now).' Am I just making this up? Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

[Don_Horhe]

Maybe your mistakes stem from the misunderstanding of the nature of Chinese verbs - they have no tense, they have aspect. Basically, the difference between the two is that the former tells us when the action is happening, while the latter tells us if the action has or has not been completed, whether it is currently being carried out, etc.

[mirgcire]

The reason that your teachers and others insist that there are no verb tenses is because Chinese does not neatly separate verbs into "tense" categories like English. Understanding Chinese verbs requires a different way of thinking. Instead of tenses it is better to think in terms of completed actions, experiences, results and change of state. Trying to shoe-horn Chinese verbs into the categories of another language is not likely to be helpful. In my opinion the only way to understand verbs is to get used to them through lots of exposure. Language is meant to be used after all. But, if you want read an excellent description of the various grammar patterns involving Chinese verbs, may I suggest "Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar" by Ross and Ma. This book describes the grammar patterns in a new way that is clear and easy to understand.

I think your example of 听 is interesting because because it seems deceptively simple but does not align with English well at all. Here are some examples of how it is combined with other markers such as 要，见，到，过，懂， etc. But please note: the English translation is just one possible translation and it correctness depends on the context of Chinese sentence.

我要听老师讲课 - I want to listen to the teacher's lecture.

我想听老师讲课 - I would like to listen to the teacher's lecture.

我听老师讲课 - I listen to the teacher's lecture.

我听见老师讲课 - I heard the teacher's lecture.

我听了老师讲课 - I listened the teacher's lecture.

我能听老师讲课 - I am able to listen the teacher's lecture.

我能听到老师讲课 - I am able to hear the teacher's lecture.

我听过老师讲课 - I have heard the teacher's lecture.

我听不到老师讲课 - I am unable to hear the teacher's lecture.

我听不懂老师讲课 - I can not understand the teacher's lecture.

我没听到老师讲课 - I was not able to hear the teacher's lecture.

我听不清楚老师讲课 - I am unable to hear the teacher's lecture clearly.

Actually I ran all 12 sentence by 3 网友. Each well educated and one who is a teacher. They all found one or two sentences that they thought were not translated properly, but none of them found fault with the same sentences, so each sentence is certified by at least 2 Chinese.

[skylee]

This thread might be helpful -> A primer on simple Chinese grammar

[renzhe]

While Chinese certainly does have grammar, it is technically true that it does not have grammatical tense -- the verbs don't typically know WHEN something takes place unless there is a time marker. It does, on the other hand, have aspect particles, which describe certain aspects of the verb, like the others have already pointed out. These do not map nicely to the tenses in Indo-European languages, but there is a lot of overlap, and they can express many of the same concepts.

Making simple "rules" like mapping 了 to the present perfect tense and 过 to the simple past tense are popular with beginners, but they lead to much confusion later on, because they don't always fit. I think that it's better to learn the meaning of such aspect markers (e.g. 了 = completion of an action, among other things, 过 = finished process, focussing on gained experience) and try to understand them the "Chinese way". This requires a good grammar book and a teacher who can explain these things. If your teachers all insist that Chinese has no grammar, this might be difficult.

On another related note, I seem to remember a teacher indicating that using '有 + verb' represents a form of 'recent past' tense

It does, in spoken language in some areas (specifically in Taiwan), but it's an interference from other dialects and is not considered correct in Mandarin.

The past tense negation, 没有, is correct though.

See this thread for some more details (from post 33).

All of my comments relate to standard Mandarin, other dialects are likely different.

[進一步，退一步]

Thank you for the replies, and sorry for any misunderstanding, I am not trying to conform Chinese to English grammar rules, and whether tense or aspect, my statements still stand: I think a simple list would be helpful to a lot of people -- even though not all particles relate to all verbs ('verb + 住,' for example seems to have a limited set of verbs to which it relates, as does the previously noted 'verb + 見'). I was inspired somewhat by a thread elsewhere on this forum about suffixes and prefixes.

Personally, I find that everyday speech is less of a problem than writing, when I have more time to think about what I want to say, and often have more complex ideas to express. Reading websites, newspaper articles, I often have no trouble understanding the verb grammar, but when I attempt to reproduce it myself, I run into problems. So, clearly a better understanding of verb grammar subtleties is in order, to elevate my speech to a more mannered level. I suspect this is a leap that many Mandarin learners have to achieve at some point or another. The book suggestion is appreciated, I have seen it mentioned before, and plan on purchasing!

To Mirgcire, like you I created a list of several sentences, mostly using the '是 ... 的' construction, and/or the '了' particle, and asked several friends and teachers about the differences in their implied meanings. And like you, I found that every person had a problem with one or more sentences, but that the 'problem sentences' were different each time. So, I guess that is what brought me to a forum like this to seek further explanation.

聽 is indeed an interesting example. For example, what exactly is the implied difference between:

我聽見老師講課 - I heard the teacher's lecture.

我聽到老師講課 - I heard the teacher's lecture.

I am thinking that '聽見' implies hearing the content, whereas '聽到' implies hearing the volume or sound. Or are they really just two ways of saying the same thing?

To RenZhe, I learned Chinese in Taiwan, so that would certainly explain the frequency with which I heard this used, which is, I might add ... very frequently!