How do you say: "I have known her since we were both 2 years old"?

Question

I've been trying to work out how to form an equivalent of the English present perfect with a stative verb. I'd like to say something along the lines of:

I have known her since we were both 2 years old.

So far, I've cobbled together this:

自从我们都二岁我认识她。

I could be way off! I'm only at elementary level and this grammar point hasn't occurred in any of my books yet so maybe it's much more complex than this.

Answer 1

"I have known her since we were both 2 years old."

I would translate this as simply:

我们两岁就认识的 "We were just 2 when we got to know each other"

Sometimes the tricky part of translation is that different languages communicate the same information using different structures, or a structure that is natural in one language is very weird in the other.

The word "since" can only be translated as 自从 in certain contexts. In sentences like this, it is more natural to switch around the word order and use 就. Here's another example:

I've been here since 3 o'clock! Where are you?!
我三点就到这里了！你在哪里啊？！

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Chinese language doesn't have tense. So you need to use connectors sparingly to make the translation fluent.

• I（我)
• have known ， 已经/经已 认识
• her 他
• since we were 自我们
• both 俩
• 2 years old 两岁大

You cannot construct the sentence directly, because it lack the fluency. Here are some suggestion.

• 我们两岁大的时候，我就认识他了。
• 我从小就认识他了，那是我们两岁大的时候。
• 我认识他的时候，我们都只两岁大。
• 我俩认识的时候，大家才（只）两岁(大)。

Here is the closes version but too awkward for today usage.

• 吾识彼于微时岁皆两。

Answer 3

Alas, the Present is never Perfect!

I've known her since we were two years old.
我从两岁起就认识她。