Language Course

坐公共汽车Travelling by bus

Sentence Patterns and Grammatical Explanations

汽车什么时候出发?

Qìchē shénme shíhou chūfā?

When does the bus leave?

A common way to ask time in Chinese is to use 什么时候 shénme shíhòu. This is equivalent of 'When' in English. Be careful with the word order when you want to inquire about when something happens.

Subject+ 什么时候+ V / VP
汽车
Qìchē
什么时候
shénme shíhou
出发?
Chūfā?
The bus when leaves?
汽车
Qìchē
什么时候
shénme shíhou
到丽江?
dào Lìjiāng?
The bus when arrives at Lijiang?
火车
Huǒchē
什么时候
shénme shíhou
到站?
dào zhàn?
The train when arrives at the station?
Project 2014-1-PL01-KA200-003591