How do the languages you speak or are learning express the following?
(Translate the following examples (except for sentences with a *) and highlight/explain how the following are expressed).

1. (just) - I just came home from a party.
2. (got) - I got a present from a friend. I got bitten by a snake.
3. (verbs) - what happens to verbs when placed with pronouns and different tenses?*
4. (past perfect) - I had called him three times before he picked up (the phone).
5. (present continuous) - I am eating a delicious chocolate cake.
6. (future perfect) - I will have seen the movie at the cinema.
7. (word order) - is your language SVO/SOV/OSV/OVS?*

Now just for fun, translate the following highlighting in bold the words/expressions below.

8. By the time I get to the beach, the sun will have set and I will have wasted my time driving there.
9. Although I am a vegetarian, the smell of meat makes my mouth water.
10. Woman, without her, man is nothing...Woman without her man, is nothing.

These forums have been pretty quiet since I was last here

1. Tôi mới vừa đi buổi tiệc về
2. Tôi được một người bạn tặng quà. Tôi bị con rắn cắn
For something good that happens, được is used, if something is bad, bị.
3. Verbs do not conjugate in Vietnamese, instead markers are used to express tenses. If a time frame is specified, tense does not need to be marked.
eg. Tôi sẽ đi ăn cơm ở nhà bạn - Ngày mai, tôi (sẽ) đi ăn cơm ở nhà bạn.
[I will go eat at a friend's place - Tommorow, I (will) go eat at a friend's place.
4. Tôi (đã) gọi ảnh ba lần trước khi ảnh bắt máy. (had called)*
5. Tôi đang ăn (một) bánh kem ngon miệng. (am eating)*
6. Tôi sẽ được coi phim ấy ở xi nê/rạp chiếu phim. (will have seen)*
7. SVO. Also a topic prominent language.
eg. Vé máy bay tôi đã mua rồi. I have already bought the plane tickets.

8. Đến lúc tôi tới bãi biển, mặt trời sẽ lặn rồi và tôi sẽ bị hau thì giờ.
'Will have set' is expressed as 'will set already', and 'will have wasted' is simply 'will NEGATIVE-MARKER waste'.
9. Tuy tôi là người ăn chay, cái mùi thịt làm cho miệng tôi chảy nước miếng.
'To make my mouth water' translates as 'to make my mouth leak saliva'. Hehe.
1. Đàn bà, không có bả, thì đàn ông không ra gì. Đàn bà không có đàn ông, thì bả không ra gì.
Both are distinct. The expression 'is nothing' translates as 'to not turn out as anything'.
To make it sound more emphatic, chẳng (emphatic negative) replaces không.

1. Práve som prišiel zo zábave.
2. Dostál som darček od kamaráta. Uhryzol ma had.
3. They change the suffix or add a/remove the prefix, i.e. they conjugate.
4. Volal som ho tri krát kým nezdvihol sluchátko.
5. Jem chutný čokoládový koláč.
6. Budem pozeral som ten film v kine. (makes no sense)
7. Any word order is fine.

I won't translate the rest. Especially not 9!

Gaaah why must life be so cruel? I had it all typed up in Mandarin and Spanish and then my computer died on me.

I will take the lazy route this second time and omit pinyin so use google translate or whatever to get the pinyin if you must have it. My Chinese grammar might be a little messed up.

1. 我刚从宴会回家来。There are other "justs" which are really complex but this is the correct one meaning "recently."
2. 我从朋友接到礼物。我被蛇咬。 There is a big distinction.
3. Nothing, sorta like Viet.
4. 我三次的给他电话以后，他才把电话拿了。 There is no past perfect in Chinese. There is experential, though.
5. 我正在吃着很好的巧克力蛋糕呢。All four bolded characters are optional and used interchangeably, so there are fifteen possible ways to have a pure present continuous.
6. 我会在电影院内看电影。 There is no specific future perfect in Chinese so you just use the future a certain way.
7. SVO

By all means, correct my Chinese, I just did Chinese because I like Chinese.

1. Acabo de volver a la casa de una fiesta.
2. Recibí un regalo de mi amigo. Me fue mordido por un serpiente.
3. Conjugation by changing suffix
4. Solo despues que le he telefoneada tres veces antes levantó el telefono.
5. Estoy comiendo una torta de chocolate muy delicioso.
6. Habré visto la película en la cine.
7. SVO
8. Cuando llego a la playa, el sol habré postado, y habré gastado mi tiempo manejando allí.
9. Bien que soy vegetariano, el olor de carne causa mi boca salivar.
10. La mujer, sin ella, el hombre no es nada…La mujer sin su hombre no es nada.

Something important that you should notice is that these are not universal translations for those words. For example, "just + simple past" is translated here as "acabar de + infinitive" yet "just" has a plethora of other usages that aren't covered by "acabar de + inf.".
Very, very true.

Changing the overall look of the forum to one... less dark and creepy and stuff, allowing more stuff with the avatars, and most importantly, increasing its dynamics would surely bring it back alive. But we know Simon just ain't let that happening. =p =/

Please note, I am not a native speaker, but hopefully one of them can correct if I am wrong.

Oh, I didn't notice Huixuan had made mistakes. I didn't read his post beyond the first item. =p


The second part is wrong. It should be:
...hasta que levantó el teléfono
...hasta que levantara el teléfono
not using "antes de + inf." / "antes de que + subj." (In your correction you'd have said "antes de levantar"/"antes de que levantara".)
SOV? The default word order is SVO.
Hypothetical future situation->you need the subjunctive. I'm not sure of the use of "manejando" either, but it sounds acceptable to me if I add hasta. I'd say "y habré perdido el tiempo yendo ahí".
Yup, you just use "babear".

Se me ocurre que hay dos maneras de expresarlo...

I can come up with 2 ways to express that...

Cuando llegue a la playa, el sol ya se habrá puesto y habré perdido el tiempo en manejar hasta allí (para ver el atardecer).

Creo que es una buena opción, que no descarta la anterior, porque uno pierde o malgasta el tiempo en algo. Y la otra opción ya la conocen.

I think that's a good alternative, one that doesn't discard the previous one, because we lose or spent time while doing something (uno pierde o malgasta el tiempo en algo in Spanish).

I went half by intuition and half by Spanish dictionary. And I thought my Chinese was bad… Although I spent a lot more time on the Chinese……

2. Recibí un regalo de mi amigo. Me fue mordido por un serpiente. (Yeah, not really a casual translation; a little awkward, but literal)
4. Solo despues que le he telefoneada tres veces antes levantó el telefono. (typo, @ dtp you were right)
5. Estoy comiendo una torta de chocolate muy delicioso. (muy seems to add better pacing, but idk)
7. SVO (< Yes it is SVO, no dispute. Even though there are SOV constructions it's still SVO)
8. Cuando llego a la playa, el sol habré postado, y habré gastado mi tiempo manejando allí. (se puesto. bad me)
9. Bien que soy vegetariano, el olor de carne causa mi boca salivar. (idk I never realy had to say "although" so I just looked it up ; salivar might be Spanglish, idk)

Interesting how it's as easy to correct a native speaker of a language as a schoolbook speaker. I've caught a Chinese person saying "I know so-and-so" in the sense "I have knowledge of so-and-so," and a Spanish speaker saying "So-and-so is from xxx" in the sense of "So-and-so is currently from xxx" (which doesn't really make sense). Of course I've been taught basically aristocratic language (with the exception of English lol), so yeah…

With few exceptions, no one is really a native speaker of the standard variety. There are any number of things a second-language speaker of English could "correct" me on if they wanted. For instance, I say "It needs corrected" instead of "It needs to be corrected" or "It needs correcting". Totally non-standard, but perfectly acceptable in certain spoken varieties.