hello and welcome back to Chinese zero to hero this is another one of those grammar mistake
analysis videos here we help you avoid some of the common mistakes in chinese
and get you speaking more correctly but please be aware that these videos are intended for beginners
and do not cover all possible use cases rather than being exhaustive and over complicate things
we are trying to keep things as simple as possible so it can be less confusing and more helpful for
beginners with that being said let's get started in this video let's take a look at some of the
most common mistakes beginners make with the word 在. 在 as you probably know means to be at
or to be located in for example 我在中国 means i'm in china or if you're not in china
you can say 我不在中国 now let's take a look at two common mistakes with 在
the first type of problems is redundant 在 that means sometimes a student may add
a 在 when it's not really needed for example consider this sentence
here the 在 is redundant we should really get rid of it and say
another example instead of saying
we should simply say
it rains outside the reason is the word 下雨 acts more like an adjective here
for example we can substitute it with 外面很冷 it's cold outside 外面刮风 it's windy outside but if
you're describing some kind of action for example playing you should say 在外面玩
play outside for example
and here's another sentence a student wrote celebrity 在中文怎么说 the problem
here is 在中文 usually when we say something "in Chinese" we do not add 在 instead it would simply say
how do you say celebrity in Chinese celebrity 中文怎么说
all right so that was the first common mistakes with 在 adding it when it's not really needed
the second type of mistakes people make with 在 is missing prepositions oftentimes the word 在
cannot be used alone it has to be used together with a preposition like 里, 下, 上
etc so if the preposition goes missing the sentence can sound off for example
在……上 means when it comes to something right with regard to something
在日常生活上 in daily life in the aspect of daily life in the area of daily life when it comes to daily life
if this 上 goes missing it sounds weird so missing prepositions
is a big problem and here's another sentence that a student wrote
the sentence is not technically wrong but usually usually more commonly we say
usually when we are talking about being inside a confined space we add 里：在我的房间里
another example
again technically this is not wrong but it's less common usually we say
all right so these are the two types of mistakes with 在 now let's do some practice and see if
we can detect mistakes with 在 and correct them number one what's the problem with this sentence
we should remove the 在 and say
with years we do not use 在 usually the second example what's wrong with sentence
that's right we shouldn't use 在 we should say
let's look at lesson four in the textbook
in Chinese we do not say look "at" we simply say look: “看看”，不是“看看在”，“看看课本”，不是“看看在课本”
and that was a quick overview of some of the most common mistakes with the word 在
here's a review sheet for your reference you can take a screenshot of this and save
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and the word 在 is taught in more detail in our HSK level 1 course to find out more about
this course you can tap on the square button to the left i'll see you in the next video