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Old 06-01-2012, 10:25 PM   #27
HansTWN
Wizard
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Quote:
Originally Posted by afv011 View Post
Yes, but there are too many nuances you can't express with "yesterday" or "tomorrow". You can't sweep half a dozen tenses into "tomorrow" and another half into "yesterday" and expect to have the same meaningful sentence; it'll still convey what you want to say, but part of it will be lost.
There are always some fine nuances lost in some cases. An example is 'intentional ambiguity' that can get lost going from Chinese to English. Since there is no plural form in Chinese you can say "there is book on the table". And you leave open if it is one or several books. It would take a very awkward sentence to covey that same meaning.

By the way, there are very easy ways to express the same meaning in Chinese that compound tenses do in Western languages. No changes in the verbs, again just two simple words are added. Not tons of new forms to learn for every verb, every tense; just 2 words that always stay the same.
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