The translation in the book says: Turn left, then drive a few minutes and you will get there.
There’s a further explanation that says:
a) This “zai4” indicates that an action will occur during a certain period of time or after something has already occurred.
b) “zai4” also refers to the repetition or continuation of a certain action or state that has yet to occur.
So, my questions are:
Is verb + le (e.g. dao4 le5) the present perfect? If so, does zai4…verb + le (e.g. zai4…dao4 le5) indicate the future perfect? The word “repetition” in b) is throwing me off as that would imply the continuous. The translation also doesn’t seem accurate as that would seem to be simple future.
You can’t directly correlate the usage of “le” with any particular tense. You can use verb + le with past, future, present perfect (I can’t think of an example of le in the present tense.) Verb + le is more accurately thought of as a change in state. In your example sentence, it indicates you will go from not being there to being there but since that change happens in the future, it’s the future tense.
You could just as well use “le” when your meaning is the present perfect e.g. wǒ yǐjīng xíguàn le which means “I’ve already adapted” or “I’ve already gotten used to it.” In this case, it’s more the yi3jing1 that indicates present perfect than the le. In that sentence, le just indicates you went from not being accustomed to being acustomed.
No, it doesn’t. In this particular example, the zài and the le or independent of each other. The zài (which is 再, not zài 在 which indicates continuous) is simply the “then” in “Turn left, then drive for a few minutes and you’ll be there.” If you’re saying “Turn left, then drive for a few minutes,” then you wouldn’t use the le (zuǒzhuǎn zài kāi jǐfēnzhōng) and if you were saying “Turn left and you’re there” you wouldn’t use the zài (zuǒzhuǎn nǐ jiù dào le).
If you really wanted to translate a future perfect sentence, you’d need something to indicate future (probably a huì or jiānghuì) and something to indicate perfect (yǐjīng to denote “already” or guò to indicate experience).
You really need to take a look at Li & Thompson’s Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. They have a good discussion of both kinds of le and many good examples that will disabuse you of the idea that le has anything to do with tense.
In your example, le is a sentence particle showing that the speaker’s statement is relevant to the current situation. The speaker is probably giving directions. If the listener follows those directions she will be in the place she wants to be in a few minutes. That’s highly relevant to her current situation of not knowing where she is. The jiù is also noteworthy here because it indicates that the listener will arrive at her destination sooner than she might have expected.
In short, there is a lot going on in that deceptively simple sentence.
Does it really say
[quote]ji3 zhong1 fen1[/quote] ???
Surely it must be jǐfēnzhōng, right?
Also, I’m not sure that it is a good idea to break up the words syllable by syllable as you seem to have done here. Zuǒzhuǎn is probably a word (cí) and therefore should not be broken up. jǐfēnzhōng is certainly said as a unit/phrase although I’m not sure how it should be parsed (jǐ fēnzhōng ??)
alidarbac: Thanks. No wonder I was confused before. I was on the wrong track completely.
[quote=“Feiren”]You really need to take a look at Li & Thompson’s Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. They have a good discussion of both kinds of le and many good examples that will disabuse you of the idea that le has anything to do with tense.
In your example, le is a sentence particle showing that the speaker’s statement is relevant to the current situation. The speaker is probably giving directions. If the listener follows those directions she will be in the place she wants to be in a few minutes. That’s highly relevant to her current situation of not knowing where she is. The jiù is also noteworthy here because it indicates that the listener will arrive at her destination sooner than she might have expected.
In short, there is a lot going on in that deceptively simple sentence.
Does it really say
[quote]ji3 zhong1 fen1[/quote] ???
Surely it must be jǐfēnzhōng, right?
Also, I’m not sure that it is a good idea to break up the words syllable by syllable as you seem to have done here. Zuǒzhuǎn is probably a word (cí) and therefore should not be broken up. jǐfēnzhōng is certainly said as a unit/phrase although I’m not sure how it should be parsed (jǐ fēnzhōng ??)
Cranky?[/quote]
Thanks for the clarification and the book suggestion.
Yes, it is indeed ji3fen1zhong1. Sorry, I copied it incorrectly.
I’m never really sure about the words as such. I just typed out pinyin per character in the book.
[quote=“Feiren”]Also, I’m not sure that it is a good idea to break up the words syllable by syllable as you seem to have done here. Zuǒzhuǎn is probably a word (cí) and therefore should not be broken up. jǐfēnzhōng is certainly said as a unit/phrase although I’m not sure how it should be parsed (jǐ fēnzhōng ??)
This thread is a good reminder to me that I need to scan the Pinyin orthography book’s section on verbs. It has lots of examples of the two kinds of le.
And I second the recommendation of Li & Thompson’s Mandarin Chinese. It’s available here in Taiwan for not too much money. (From Crane, I think.)