你本不应该跑。

[rockytriton]

I'm not sure what the 本 in this sentence is for. Does it change "You should not run" to "You should not have run" ??

[盤古]

本 ben in this case stands for 本来 benlai, which roughly translates into "originally".

So the whole sentence would be "You shouldn't have run originally", or even better "You shouldn't have run in the first place."

I personally have never heard of anyone shorten 本来 to just 本 though, but to native-speakers, it still makes sense.

[eddiewouldgo]

Yes it does.

本 = 本來

[Yuchi]

You shouldn't have ran in the first place.

本 is used to substitute for the whole word 本身 (which means "in itself", but I like to (probably incorrectly) say it means "orginally")

Unless I'm wrong..

[skylee]

You shouldn't have run.

你本來就不應該跑。

[rockytriton]

Thanks, I'm trying to learn some things from a Chinese version of "DaVinci Code", and I'm checking some sentences and that one is supposed to say "You shouldn't have run", but I couldn't understand the 本 in there. I think I have a lot more things to learn before I will be able to understand more of this book.

[chenpv]

That's a good question. The meaning of 本 is reflected by the tense in English. Its a major difference between English and Chinese expressions.

I can give u another example: I thought you would come.

我原以为你会来的。

我还以为你会来的。

Note the characters 原 还.

[Long Zhiren]

"You should not run" to "You should not have run"

How about:

"你不必跑" or "你不要跑"

and

"你根本不必跑"