ABSTRACT
Unlike English and many other languages, Chinese does not have grammatical structures that mark a sentence as past, present, or future. Instead, when time is relevant, Mandarin uses words or phrases to signal the time. For example, words like jCntiAn today and jCnnián this year indicate that a sentence is talking about present time. Words and phrases such as yào want, xiFng think about, plan, and xià 个 xCngqC next week refer to future time. Mandarin sentences are often unmarked for time. That is, they need not include words or particles that indicate time or tense. When a sentence is unmarked for time, the context of the sentence will let you know if it refers to the past, present, or future time, or if it is simply stating a situation that is generally true.
