Comments on: The elusive IF http://www.sinoglot.com/bjs/2010/01/the-elusive-if/?&owa_medium=feed&owa_sid= Home of the Beijing Sounds Studios: productions mostly of language through foreign ears Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:08:32 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: maria http://www.sinoglot.com/bjs/2010/01/the-elusive-if/comment-page-1/#comment-66695 maria Sun, 23 May 2010 17:36:05 +0000 http://www.bjshengr.com/bjs/?p=1204#comment-66695 I come from a country whose native language is not english. In regards to this "if"... My native language also doesn't have such 3 types of 'if' conditional as the one you have been talking about: 1st, if I go to the cinema, I will definately meet her. 2nd, if I were you, I wouldn't come up with such an idea. 3rd, if you had been there, I would let you to meet my boyfriend. And so, in replace to those, we just merely add the words that are suitable depending on the contexts. In chinese, ru guo, jia shi, jia ru, can be used to form the if conditional. Jia shi, or jia ru, can be used to form the second type of 'if' conditional, while ru guo can be used to form the first type of 'if' conditional. The third type of 'if' conditional, it refers to an event happens in the past, so we could add the timing words to give the indication that the event is already over, na shi hou, ru guo wo shi ni, shuo bu ding wo yao shuo zhen hua de....or na tian, ru guo/jia shi/jia ru ni shi wo de tong wu, wo ken ding neng bang ni de... Hope this helps, and sorry ..., I don't type the pin yin correctly since the gadget I use doesn't support chinese (han zi) and pin yin with tone's marks... This is just my opinion, since my native language doesn't have such an 'if' conditional, and neither does chinese. Correct me I'm wrong, I'm not an expert in linguistic; and neither English and Chinese is my native language... I come from a country whose native language is not english.
In regards to this “if”… My native language also doesn’t have such 3 types of ‘if’ conditional as the one you have been talking about:
1st, if I go to the cinema, I will definately meet her.
2nd, if I were you, I wouldn’t come up with such an idea.
3rd, if you had been there, I would let you to meet my boyfriend.
And so, in replace to those, we just merely add the words that are suitable depending on the contexts.

In chinese, ru guo, jia shi, jia ru, can be used to form the if conditional.
Jia shi, or jia ru, can be used to form the second type of ‘if’ conditional, while ru guo can be used to form the first type of ‘if’ conditional. The third type of ‘if’ conditional, it refers to an event happens in the past, so we could add the timing words to give the indication that the event is already over, na shi hou, ru guo wo shi ni, shuo bu ding wo yao shuo zhen hua de….or na tian, ru guo/jia shi/jia ru ni shi wo de tong wu, wo ken ding neng bang ni de…

Hope this helps, and sorry …, I don’t type the pin yin correctly since the gadget I use doesn’t support chinese (han zi) and pin yin with tone’s marks…
This is just my opinion, since my native language doesn’t have such an ‘if’ conditional, and neither does chinese. Correct me I’m wrong, I’m not an expert in linguistic; and neither English and Chinese is my native language…

]]> By: Albert http://www.sinoglot.com/bjs/2010/01/the-elusive-if/comment-page-1/#comment-50171 Albert Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:16:13 +0000 http://www.bjshengr.com/bjs/?p=1204#comment-50171 How exciting to tune in so late and see all the discussion my ignorance spawned. I guess the moral of the story is: - ignore all the "jiushi"s before the real sentence starts (the real sentence is "wǒ shì mài luóbo de, wǒ jiù zài nèr xiāo") That's definitely an "if" statement. Which one (If I am / If I were / If I had been), must remain a mystery without context, which we have, so it's not a mystery. How exciting to tune in so late and see all the discussion my ignorance spawned. I guess the moral of the story is:

- ignore all the “jiushi”s before the real sentence starts (the real sentence is “wǒ shì mài luóbo de, wǒ jiù zài nèr xiāo”)

That’s definitely an “if” statement. Which one (If I am / If I were / If I had been), must remain a mystery without context, which we have, so it’s not a mystery.

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