往前 in Context

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往前

Usage 1 - "towards the front, ahead, forward": 

Sentence

往前走，在你的左边就是学校了。

English:

Walk forward, the school is just on your left.

Top-Down Words:

就是 jiùshì - exactly, just
学校 xuéxiào - school

Sentence:

他往前走了几千米。  

English:

He went a few thousand meters forward. 

Sentence:

往前走100米就到公司了。

English:

Go forward 100 meters to arrive at the office. 

Top-Down Words:

就 jiù - (grammatical particle) in this case meaning “as soon as” or “right after”.
到 dào - to arrive

Sentence:

一起往前走。

English:

Let's move forward together.

*Sentence:

我有一个朋友住在我家后面，往前一点就是银行。

English:

I have a friend who lives behind my house. The bank is just ahead of his house.

Need a Reminder?

The Six Steps to Learning Words

Understanding Chinese Words - Morphemes

3 Questions About Words

Member Comments from 2019-mid-2020

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Christine

Please help me here.. I know your sentences are more a loose translation of the meaning rather than the exact, or precise translation, but I have to say that this can sometimes be very confusing! I mean, I know what the sentence is trying to say but the word order etc is just completely the other way round. But don't worry, I get it, it is just sometimes a bit frustrating since the sentences just doesn't seem to make sense according to what I read and what the translation says.. Further question: would it be possible to also say: 银行就是往前一点 ?

Mandarin Blueprint

Hey Christine, I checked all the sentences and the only one I could see that might be a bit difficult is the final sentence. Watch out for those with an asterix as they are part of a larger context and therefore can have hidden context affecting the translation.
Your last sentence is fine!

Christine

Apologies, I should have said it was the last sentence. I am talking of the last bit, where the sentence seems to say to me...'just a bit up ahead is the bank'. The bit that confused me is the mention of 'his house'? I know it is probably implied that the bank is just up ahead from his house and I know that sometimes words are left out since one should be able to derive it from context, but I am still at a level of slowly spelling out each word and trying to make head or tail of the sentence, so if the English translation is so far off and have words in that I can actually not even find in the sentence I get all panicky.. 'Wait.. what? Did I miss something?' Thanks for getting back so quickly, you guys are so awesome with really interacting with our guys on the course, it is really great. Keep up the good work, your efforts and the content is really appreciated! Just take pity on our beginners who are still trying to make head or tails out of sentences!

Mandarin Blueprint

Hey Christine, Phil here. The context of why it's "a bit up ahead of *his house*" comes in the first part of the sentence. In the first part (我有一个朋友住在我家后面), the speaker established the first location as his/her friend's house (aka, where the friend "lives" 住). The speaker expresses this relative to his/her house, but ultimately they are still speaking of the friend's house, not his/her own when he/she says "住在我家后面." With that already established, we know that "往前一点“ is relative to where the friend lives, not the speaker.

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Howard Soh

I've always found it curious that 前 means 'before' when used in a time context (以前 & 前天) but means 'ahead' when used spatially (前面 & 往前). And the same logic appears to apply to 后!

MB Team

Here's the link to where Phil & Luke talked about this comment in the Mandarin Blueprint Podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIceumfAajc&t=2817s