Continuous action: 在、着、or 在。。着

dianema
 January 17, 2010 at 01:05 PM posted in I Have a Question

The usage of 着 vs 在 has always confused me when it comes to making up my own sentences.  My impression is that 着 is often used as a background to another action:

 他拿着书信站起来。

or to just describe a "state"

他就在站着拿着刚来的书信。

What about：

他在写信。

It seems unnatural to say：他写着信。

What the difference between:

他看着我。

他在看我。

他在看着我。

Thanks!

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cqwuxioalong
 January 23, 2010 at 10:51 PM

this questions is very very Difficulty。

（他看着我。

他在看我。

他在看着我。）is state  and have Similarly means；你，我，他，他们，它们，她们，它+“在”，Verb+“着”。

i want Learn English

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dianema
 January 23, 2010 at 02:10 PM

Hi zhenlijiang,

Thanks for the link.  It does help! And it's a great summary.

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zhenlijiang
 January 17, 2010 at 08:51 PM

Hi dianema,

Here's a post with questions answered on how to express English tenses in Chinese including ~着 VS 在~.
It has a lot of good information, particularly the clarifications from Jiaojie 老师 that you'd want to watch out for.

Hope it covers everything you want to know.