第五十一天

[nnozomi]

有没有 for have/have not questions or past questions with verbs
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Affirmative-negative_question

Sort of continued from yesterday.

Guardian:
你要是想知道我每天有没有按时吃饭，你加入我们特调处不就知道了吗 (if you want to know whether I'm eating regular meals daily, you can join our SID. I'm not sure what's happening at the end of this sentence grammatically...)
你到底有没有在听我说话？(have you been listening to me or not?)
你好，你有没有看见一个脸上留着胡子然后嘴里可能含着棒棒糖的这样的一个男人？(Shen Wei's on-point description of Zhao Yunlan, a man with a beard and mustache who might have a lollipop in his mouth)

My practice:
你昨天有没有喝完了咖啡？
等火车来的时候，我们有没有买小吃的时间？

Comments

[trobadora]

I'm not sure what's happening at the end of this sentence grammatically...

I was just wondering about that myself ... /o\

On the subject of descriptions to use when searching for someone, here's a hilarious example from SHL:

不知温公子有没有看到一个男人？ 他手抱着琵琶，也可能没抱琵琶。

Luckily Wen Kexing knows who they're talking about, LOL.

[presumenothing]

不就知道了吗 means something roughly like 就会知道了啊, but with… more emphasis I suppose? More panache? In the way all rhetorical questions are.

nnozomi – it's the second meaning here!

[grayswandir]

I'm not sure what's happening at the end of this sentence grammatically.

There's a really common rhetorical-question construction in Cantonese that's similar (negation + X + question-y final particle), so that was the first thing I thought of when I read it, and based on what presumenothing said, it sounds like the meaning is the same -- I often see the Canto version translated as a negative rhetorical question like "is it not the case that X?" or "then wouldn't it be X?" or "then won't X happen?" (or just non-rhetorically as "then [obviously] X"). So maybe in this case something like, "just join the SID and you'll know, won't you?"

[nnozomi]

不知温公子有没有看到一个男人？ 他手抱着琵琶，也可能没抱琵琶。
哈哈哈 omigod, "a man carrying a pipa. Except maybe he isn't carrying a pipa. Have you seen him?" lolol.

[nnozomi]

Thank you! Ooh that's a helpful link.

[nnozomi]

So maybe in this case something like, "just join the SID and you'll know, won't you?"
Thank you! That makes a lot of sense. 了 confusing me as usual...

[grayswandir]

Oh, if it was the 了 that was confusing then my answer is totally unhelpful, because I don't understand the 了 either! Change of state? Completion???

[nnozomi]

no, you and presumenothing provided enough context that I could get the general sense rather than just, you know, dangling off the hook of the 了 ;) . (it's sometimes kind of like もう in Japanese, which is also hard to explain, but here I guess "be in a state of knowing" is what it's saying?) Sorry, that makes no sense at all, but basically I am somewhat less confused than I was and thank you :)

[grayswandir]

Ah, that's the one you talked about here, right? I need to try to remember this...

[nnozomi]

Ah, that's the one you talked about here, right? I need to try to remember this...
I think so, but 了 is still halfway beyond me in all forms 哈哈。 Maybe we should have some review 了 days soon...