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Use this pattern to express the idea: When a short-term event happened, another (longer-term) action was taking place. Time-when expressions of the form Noun-Verb(Object)-的時候 must come before the subject. Other time-when expressions, such as 現在, 三點鐘 etc., may come before or after the subject. If time-when is not specified, you can assume 現在 unless there is some reason from context to assume otherwise. You may use almost any combination of 正在 and 呢 as long as the meaning is clear. To indicate that an action is still going on, you use 還在. Note that the word order of the English equivalent can be switched around, but in Chinese, the time-when expression must come first.
|
Time-when
|
Subject
(Noun) |
Adverb
正在 |
Verb
Phrase
|
呢
optional |
English |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 他來的時候 | 我 | 正在 | 吃飯 | 呢 |
When he came
I was just eating.
I was just eating when he came. |
| 他給我打電話的時候 | 我 | 正 | 說到他 |
When he called
me, I was just speaking of him.
|
|
| 三點鐘 | 我 | 在 | 做飯 |
At three o'clock,
I was in the middle of cooking.
|
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| 他來的時候 | 我 | 彈鋼琴 | 呢 |
When he came,
I was playing the piano.
|
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| 我 | 正在 | 做功課 |
I am in
the middle of doing my homework.
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| 我 | 還在 | 做功課 |
I am still
doing my homework.
|
If what you want to put the emphasis on the short-term event that happened while a longer one was taking place, you don't need to include anything special to mark the first action as progressive. Just use a normal time-when pattern, as in 我彈鋼琴的時候, 他來了 ("While I was playing the piano, he arrived." or "He came while I was playing the piano.").
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If you can't read the Chinese characters, install Microsoft traditional Chinese font, then set browser to view character set "Big 5 (traditional Chinese)."
This page
created by Mary Jacob 
