I want to say that I studied mandarin for 3 months last summer (and have not studied since then) but am confused about about sentence order and 了 placement
Is 下个暑假我学了三个月汉语 correct?
If I wanted to add in that I studied in Shanghai would 在上海 go before 学了 (下个暑假我在上海学了三个月汉语)?
Thank you!!
"下个暑假我学了三个月汉语" has two problems.
First, "下个暑假" is next summer, not last. If it's next summer, "了" , as a resultative verb suffix, should not be there, since the action cannot have been completed yet. The correct time is "上个暑假" or better still, "去年夏天". since you never indicated that it's during the summer vacation, so I would simply say "夏天", summer.
Second, "我学了三个月汉语" tells me you learned Chinese for three months. And most people would understand it to be a continuous three months, unless you specify that it's off and on, just like you would in an English sentence. I would add an adverb of manner "斷續" before the verb to indicate it is off and on.
去年夏天我斷續学了三个月汉语。
If you want to add an adverb of place, then it will come before the verb.
去年夏天我在上海斷續学了三个月汉语。
上年夏天我在上海学了中文三个月
The "when" must come at the beginning of the sentence, either before or after the subject and before the verb phrase.
The duration must come after the verb phrase.
See my answer here for clarification on where to place 在.
Last summer should be translated into 去年夏天 or 上个夏天. The first translation is more commonly used in China. 夏天 is a general term for summer (the season) while 暑假 refers specifically to the summer holidays. In China, we will normally express the sentence as 去年夏天我学了三个月的汉语. If you would like to add the location, you can say 去年夏天我在上海学了三个月的汉语.
Last summer in Shanghai I studied Chinese language for 3 months, but since then, alas, I have not studied it anymore.
去年夏天，我在上海学习了三个月的汉语，但从那以后，我就再也没有学过（什么）汉语了。
我很懒惰!
I'm so lazy!
