# 电视我想看下去



## DernierVirage

I am having difficulty with the use of 下去 (as well as the word order) in situations where the verb “continue” has a direct object. 

For example, instead of « 我想继续看电视 » can I also say:

电视我想看下去 (use 下去 instead of 继续 )
我想继续看下去电视 (use 下去 as well as 继续)

In other words, if I replace 继续 with下去 then I must start the sentence with the object ("topic comment structure"). If not, I can use both expressions together and keep the usual word order. Is this right ?

Thanks very much to everyone for your help.


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## Carc

If a verb is attached with "下去", the object must be moved to the front.

So 
"电视我想看下去" is correct
"我想继续看下去电视" should be "电视我想继续看下去"


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## DernierVirage

Thanks very much for your helpful message, this is much more clear now for the word order.

As regards meaning, would you say that the following are all exactly the same and interchangeable ?

电视我想看下去
电视我想继续看下去
我想继续看电视 

Thanks again !


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## Ghabi

> 1.电视我想看下去
> 2.电视我想继续看下去
> 3.我想继续看电视


1 and 2 mean the same thing, but they're different from 3. 

1 or 2 means "As to TV, I want to keep watching..." i.e. I don't care about the radio or whatever else, it's TV that I want to keep watching. For example, both the TV and the radio are on. Your wife asks you: "Can I turn them off?" and you answer: "  电视,我想看下去,收音机,关了也可以".  

3 is a simple statement without contrast. For example, your wife asks you: "Let''s go out for dinner." And you answer: "No, I wanna keep watching TV".


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## DernierVirage

Ghabi - thanks, that's exactly what I needed to know.

In other words, if you use the complement 下去 (either alone or with 继续), you are "forced' into the topic comment structure, and so emphasising the object of the sentence.

Thanks again, DV


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## Ghabi

Now that you mention it ... I think you're right. (Of course I've never thought about these things!)


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## xiaolijie

I think there's a better way to use 下去 instead of 继续 _without having to turn the object into a topic_:
1. 我想把这节目看下去。
2. 我想把这本书看下去。
But that is the limit of what I, as a non-native speaker, can say, since I'm still not sure if it's correct to say:
3. 我想把电视看下去。
Can some native speaker please confirm if this sentence (3) is also ok?


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## Ghabi

xiaolijie said:


> 1. 我想把这节目看下去。
> 2. 我想把这本书看下去。
> 3. 我想把电视看下去。


They don't sound right to my ears.


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## xiaolijie

Thanks! 

Edit: It's interesting that just out of curiosity, I tried Google and found many sentences with these:
把这节目看下去
把这本书看下去
把电视看下去

How come?


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## jazzphobie

DernierVirage said:


> 电视我想看下去
> 电视我想继续看下去
> 我想继续看电视



I personally find the first two sentences a bit ambiguous, because they could either mean: "it is the TV that I want to keep watching, and I don't care if the  radio is on or not", or "I want to keep watching this particular TV program that I am watching now -- I don't want to watch anything else."

To clarify, usually I would say something like:
这个电视 / 这部电视剧 / 这个节目, etc. 我想 （继续） 看下去－－Ｉ want to keep watching this particular TV program;
我还想看电视。/我想继续看电视 -- I want to keep watching TV, not listening to the radio or anything else.



xiaolijie said:


> Thanks!
> 
> Edit: It's interesting that just out of curiosity, I tried Google and  found many sentences with these:
> 把这节目看下去
> 把这本书看下去
> 把电视看下去
> 
> How come?



I think these sentences are grammatically correct, but they can have two meanings, depending on the context:
If I said:你（给我）把这节目看下去，I'm telling the person to force him/herself to finish watching the TV program. Similarly 把这本书看下去 means to force oneself to finish reading the book.

But 我想把这本书/这个节目看下去，means that I simply want to keep watching the program or keep reading the book.


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## DernierVirage

Jazzphobie: interesting post, thanks very much. As regards your use of the 把字句 structure in your sentence "我想把这本书/这个节目看下去", is it OK to do so here only because your are specifying a particular thing (by using 这), rather than making a general statement. In other words, if I combine what you and Ghabi (amongst others) have said above, the position is as follows:

If I use the complement 下去(either alone or with 继续), then I must use either:

(a) topic comment structure (in any context) OR
(b) 把字句 (where the object is specified).

Thanks again for all the helpful input from everyone


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## Ghabi

xiaolijie said:


> It's interesting that just out of curiosity, I tried Google and found many sentences with these:
> 把这节目看下去
> 把这本书看下去
> 把电视看下去
> 
> How come?


I can't explain, my dear friend, they just sound stilted to me. They're understandable, but somehow I find it strange to mention the object at all. I can't think of any context where I would construct sentences like them. The way I speak is something like this:

   －我借你的书都看完了吗？我要用呢。Have you finished the book? I need it.
  －还未看完，迟一点还你吧，我还想看下去。Not yet. Can I return it to you later? I want to finish it.
  －好吧，你慢慢看。你觉得这书怎样？ Okay. Take your time. How do you like it?
  －说实的，生词挺多，很难看下去。I find it hard going, if you wanna know the truth, with all those hard words.

You see we don't really need to mention the book.


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## DernierVirage

Ghabi - as usual, what you say is very illuminating. The key point you make is when you say "You see we don't really need to mention the book", in other words we do not need to stress the "impact" made on the object of the sentence here, since we are talking about the continuation of the verb 看 and not the impact of the action on 电视 and so the 把字句 structure is not appropriate. The opposite would be the case if we said something like 我把你要的书找到了  - am I right?

So it seems that with the use of 下去, we only have one option for the structure, which is topic comment.

Thanks again for your help


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