Example Sentences

[blubberbubble]

I sometimes wonder if some of the example sentences in Skritter are correct. Then again, my Chinese is pretty mediocre so I really have no idea Maybe we can discuss these here.

I just stumbled over this one:
大家都玩爱情游戏

Why does the 玩 come before the 爱情? Shouldn’t 玩 directly precede 游戏 because playing games (游戏) is what ostensibly everybody loves (爱情)?

Got pretty much the same irritation with this one:
宾馆住三星的 (translated as “stay in three stars hotel”)

Why is there no direct connection between 宾馆 and 三星? Or is this something like “the hotel (I / somebody) stayed in was three stars”?

[pts]

爱情 is not a verb but a noun meaning affection or romantic love.
玩 爱情游戏 is to play a game of love.

宾馆住三星的
宾馆 is the topic of the sentence introducing what the following conversation is about.
的 here functions as a pronoun replacing the noun mentioned in the topic, i.e. 宾馆.

One of the many possible translations:
As for the hotels, you’ll stay in the 3-star ones.

[Jeremy]

As a little note, example sentences are constantly being revised or updated as the default-- we also plan to overhaul the sentence system in the future so it works even more nicely!

[blubberbubble]

@pts, thanks a lot, that clears things up =)

@Jeremy, sounds great - I really hope you’re also gonna bring example sentences to the Android app soon. I learn so much more efficiently with them.

[blubberbubble]

Here’s one in which the placement of 了 puzzles me. (Not that 了 doesn’t puzzle me all the time, but I thought I’ll ask you guys about this one… :D)

聚会已经推迟到了下周二。

Why isn’t the 了in the very back here? I was expecting “聚会已经推迟了到下周二” or “聚会已经推迟到下周二了”. Would any of these be correct as well?

[podster]

Jeremy,
On a related note, I just notice that although I can add my own sample sentence to the list of existing ones in Skritter 1.0 by selecting “change” and then “create new sentence for . . .” , I can’t figure out how to add one where none already exists. Am I missing something?

[Jeremy]

Hmm, it should be that if there’s no sentence, it shows up as “(no sentence selected)”, and give you the ability to create one.

1)

2)

Regarding @blubberbubble’s question-- someone who speaks Chinese will have to step in to answer. (I could help if were a Japanese question, though! )

[ximeng]

Think it’s just 1 and 3 are correct,Second one (推迟了到) is not correct, I guess because it’s treated as a complete verbal phrase and can’t be split. I asked this on HelloTalk (language exchange app) and got a lot of answers straight away.

[podster]

Thanks, Jeremy, but that doesn’t look familiar. I haven’t come across another case since posting this issue though were there is no sample sentence.

[podster]

Jeremy,
Okay, now I have definitely come across several more words with no sample sentence and no way for me to create them. I am using Skritter 1.0 in Chrome Version 55.0.2883.87 m. The interface when studying Chinese does not look like your screenshot. I guess this is a bug.

[Jeremy]

I think it may be that I’ve shown a screenshot of the detailed information popup, which isn’t immediately visible on the study screen on 1.0. To access the information popup, you would need to click the magnifying glass icon, in the upper right hand corner of the study screen.

Once you’ve clicked the magnifying glass, the screen posted in the earlier screenshots will show, allowing you to create a sentence if it doesn’t yet exist. I should have explained that more clearly the first time, sorry!

[podster]

Got it, thanks! Tried it and it worked as you described.

[SkritterOlle]

I just want to chip in on the correctness of sentences here since I looked around a bit (before I saw Ximeng’s answer, which I agree with). The second version is not correct, but could conceivably still be used if you add a comma or pause after 了, but this would still be very colloquial and probably still considered wrong in many cases.