Those with keen eyes may have noticed something interesting.
In Lesson Two when we were discussing how to express date, 日 (which means the Sun) is used to express the day. In the last lesson, we have
A sunny day, we say "晴天".
雨 is rain as in 雨天 (rainy day)...
Of course, we should not say "sunny SUN (晴日)" for a sunny day. Rain also does not come from the Sun. So what is the meaning of 天 when it is used alone, you may ask?
天 means sky when it is used by itself. Now that make sense. 天 is also another way of expressing "day".
Chinese is easier than Western language because we do not need to change the verb to different form (e.g. we don't have constructs like go, goes, went, gone) according time, gender nor number. A verb (a single character or a phrase) is the same in all these situation.
Chinese expresses the time (tense) explicitly or implied from context.
Now is 現在, Past is 過去 and future is 未來.
Today is 今天 or 今日.
Yesterday is 昨 or 昨日. Yesteryear is 昨年 or 去年.
Tomorrow is 明天 or 明日. Next year is 明年.
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