Question about word order in Mandarin. The sentence I am asked to translate: "What time are we having dinner Saturday night?" My attempt: 我们星期六晚上几点吃晚饭？Did I do this right or is my word order off? @angle @kittybasil

Question

kittybasil · Answer

you may have it backwards, I think it's 我们星期六晚上几点吃饭？ Asked family member for native speaker's expertise, btw

kittybasil · Answer

*quick note that I mistyped "dinner" for "food" -- it should be: 晚餐

kittybasil · Answer

Well you could also say "wan fan" idk e.e

Angle · Answer

Both could be correct

As a direct translation, Voca's original is more correct. But personally I find "Are you having dinner at night?" (that is, using "wanshang" AND "wan fan" in the same sentence) to be rather redundant.

as dinner or "wan fan" by itself has the inferred meaning of being in the evening

Personally, if I were actually using this in conversation, I would ask: "Wo men xing li liu ji dian chi wan fan?" ; that is that I would leave out the "night" part, rather than "dinner" part as kitty had.

Vocaloid · Answer

yeah that's what I was thinking too. but I can ask my professor tomorrow about what she prefers.