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It means "At university, she studied biology.", correct?

So far I've learned that location goes after the subject, but I've seen this construct twice now. The other time it was in a sentence that was translated (not by me) to "We are not allowed to eat inside the subway".

The "inside the subway" bit was again at the front of the sentence. It's not really any harder for me to read, but if I was asked write this sentence I'd probably forget and put the location after the subject.

Why does the 在...里 construct lead?

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  • Yes, this means what you think it means (生物 is short for 生物学). In what kind of contexts have you learned that the location goes after the subject? Could you give some examples? I'm struggling to think of similar sentences where I'd phrase the sentence as "她X在Y", unless there's something else in the middle drawing away attention from the location.
    – 八带永
    Commented Jan 12, 2018 at 14:55
  • The book "Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammer" defines the basic sentence structure as "Who, (when) where, what." It follows with the example 我在家里吃饭. I feel like I've seen this in many of my duolingo lessons as well when, for example, saying "I studied Chinese in Beijing".
    – Josh Gagnon
    Commented Jan 12, 2018 at 15:08
  • I'm now confused about your question. Is it that 她 comes after 在X? If so, that makes basically no difference other than slight emphasis. 她在大学学习了生物 is also fine.
    – 八带永
    Commented Jan 12, 2018 at 15:14
  • Yes, it is essentially about 她 and its location relative to the location phrase. I suspect I've put too much importance on some of the pieces I've learned in my grammar books.
    – Josh Gagnon
    Commented Jan 12, 2018 at 15:37
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    – user6065
    Commented Jan 12, 2018 at 16:36

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Assuming your question is about the placement of 她, either way is fine:

她在大学学习了生物 (she studied biology at university)

在大学她学习了生物 (at university, she studied biology)

The latter has somewhat more focus on it happening at university, but in this sentence it doesn't make much of a difference.

This basically goes for all kinds of situations, not just explicit 在, for example "我今天要去中学" and "今天我要去中学" are both equally valid, but the latter has more focus on the time at which the action will occur.

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