Learn Hardcore Chinese: nǐ bùyào yìzhí zài fángjiān lǐ shàngwǎng. - Don’t stay online in your room all the time.

别
- Feels a bit shorter, snappier, more colloquial.
- Very common in spoken commands: 别说话, 别走, 别哭.
- Can sound more casual or blunt, depending on tone.
不要
- Slightly more neutral and can sound more “standard” / textbook-like.
- Also used in written language and in more formal contexts.
- Often used for warnings or advice, not just direct commands:
  - 你不要太累着自己。 – Don’t overwork yourself.
  - 开车不要打电话。 – Don’t make phone calls while driving.

In this specific sentence, both are fine. The difference is small and mostly about feel rather than meaning.

Is the 你 (nǐ) necessary? Can I just say 不要一直在房间里上网?

You can omit 你 here. Both are natural:

你不要一直在房间里上网。
不要一直在房间里上网。

Differences:

With 你:
- Clearly directed at you.
- Feels more explicit, sometimes more lecturing or parental in tone, depending on voice.
Without 你:
- Still usually understood as “you” from context, but sounds a bit more general or less confrontational.
- Similar to English:
  - “Don’t keep surfing the internet in your room.” (no explicit “you”)

In daily speech, it’s very common to drop the subject when it’s obvious from context.

What exactly does 一直 (yìzhí) add? How is 不要一直在房间里上网 different from 不要在房间里上网?

一直 roughly means “continuously, constantly, all the time”.

不要在房间里上网。
- “Don’t use the internet in your room.”
- A simple prohibition: this action itself is not allowed in that location.
不要一直在房间里上网。
- “Don’t keep using the internet in your room / don’t always be online in your room.”
- The speaker’s complaint is about the duration / frequency — doing it too much, too often, for too long, not necessarily the mere fact of doing it once.

So 一直 focuses on the ongoing / repeated nature of the action, very similar to the nuance of “keep (doing something)” or “always (doing something)” in English.

Could I move 一直 to a different place, like 你不要在房间里一直上网? Is that still correct, and is there a difference?

Yes, 你不要在房间里一直上网 is also grammatically correct and natural.

Two common patterns:

你不要一直在房间里上网。
你不要在房间里一直上网。

Both are used. Nuance is very slight:

Pattern 1 (一直在房间里上网):
- The chunk 一直在房间里 feels like one unit: “continuously in the room doing internet stuff.”
- Emphasis a little more on being in the room so much doing this.
Pattern 2 (在房间里一直上网):
- The location 在房间里 is established first, then 一直上网 describes what you do there continuously.
- Emphasis a tiny bit more on constantly being online while in that location.

In everyday conversation, most people won’t feel a strong difference; both versions are fine and idiomatic. What you cannot say is:

✘ 你不要一直上网在房间里。 – Wrong word order.

What’s the role of 在 (zài) in 在房间里上网? Can I drop it and just say 房间里上网?

在 here is a preposition (or “coverb”) meaning “at / in / on (a place)”.

在房间里上网 literally: “be-at/in the room use-the-internet”.

You have a few related forms:

在房间里上网 – most natural full phrase.
在房间上网 – also possible; a bit less specific about “inside”.
房间里上网 – 可以, and does appear, especially in faster speech or when the location is already clear. But 在房间里上网 is more canonical.

Functionally:

在 + place + Verb is the standard way to say “do something at/in [place]”.
- 在家看电视 – watch TV at home
- 在学校学习 – study at school

So:

在 = introduces the location.
房间里 = “inside the room”.

If you completely remove 在 and just say 你不要房间里上网, this sounds awkward / unnatural. Chinese almost always uses 在 (or another preposition) before the place phrase when it’s an adverbial like this.

Why do we need 里 (lǐ) after 房间? Could I just say 在房间上网?

Both are possible, but there’s a nuance:

在房间里上网
- Literally “use the internet inside the room”.
- 里 emphasizes the interior of a container-like place.
- Very natural, probably the most common form.
在房间上网
- Also acceptable.
- Here 房间 functions as a location on its own; 里 is just omitted.
- Still usually understood as “in your room” from context.

In practice:

房间里 feels like “inside the room”, highlighting the inside space.
房间 alone can be used as a location too, but 房间里 is extremely common in daily speech for “in (one’s) room”.

So 在房间里上网 is the “textbook natural” version; 在房间上网 is okay but (to many speakers) slightly less vivid.

What exactly does 上网 (shàngwǎng) mean? Is 上 a verb and 网 a noun here?

Yes. Literally:

上 (shàng): originally “to go up, to ascend; to go to; to get on”.
网 (wǎng): “net” → in modern usage, “the internet”.

Together 上网 is a set phrase meaning:

“to go online; to get on the internet; to use the internet / browse the web.”

So you can think of it as something like “go onto the net”.

Usage examples:

我在上网。 – I’m online / I’m surfing the internet.
他每天上好几个小时网。 – He spends several hours online every day.
不要上太多网。 – Don’t be online too much.

Grammatically, 上网 acts as a single verb (a verb-object compound), but it’s usually not split in beginner/intermediate usage. You normally keep 上网 together as “to be on the internet”.

How do I know whether this sentence is about “now” or about the “future”? There’s no tense marker.

Mandarin usually doesn’t mark tense explicitly (no equivalent of -ed, will, etc.). Instead, context, time words, and aspect particles give you the time frame.

你不要一直在房间里上网。 can mean:

“Don’t keep surfing the internet in your room (now).”
“Don’t keep surfing the internet in your room (in general / in the future).”

It’s interpreted from context and situation:

If a parent says this while you’re currently online in your room, it’s about right now and also a habit they want you to stop.
If it’s said as advice about your lifestyle, it’s more general / future-oriented.

To make time more explicit, you could add time expressions:

以后你不要一直在房间里上网。 – In the future, don’t keep surfing the internet in your room.
今天晚上不要一直在房间里上网。 – Don’t keep surfing the internet in your room tonight.

Does 不要 in this sentence sound very strong or rude? How would I make it softer or more polite?

不要 can sound like a direct command, but whether it feels rude depends a lot on tone of voice, relationship, and context.

Some ways to soften it:

Add 吧 (ba) at the end to make it more like a suggestion:
- 你不要一直在房间里上网吧。
- “Maybe don’t keep surfing the internet in your room.”
Use a more “advice-like” phrasing:
- 你还是不要一直在房间里上网。
- “You’d better not keep surfing the internet in your room.”
Add a reason:
- 你不要一直在房间里上网，对身体不好。
- “Don’t keep surfing the internet in your room, it’s bad for your health.”
Use a softer verb structure:
- 你少在房间里上网。 – “Spend less time online in your room.”
- 你在房间里上网的时间不要太长。 – “Don’t spend too long online in your room.”

In a typical parent → child situation, 你不要一直在房间里上网 is direct but very normal and not necessarily considered rude.

I often see 不要…了 at the end of a sentence. Could I say 你不要一直在房间里上网了? What does the 了 do?

Yes, 你不要一直在房间里上网了 is very natural.

Adding 了 at the end here often gives a sense of:

“Enough already / stop it now / things should change now.”

Nuance:

你不要一直在房间里上网。
- Neutral command: “Don’t keep surfing the internet in your room.”
你不要一直在房间里上网了。
- Often implies the speaker feels you’ve already been doing this too much, and now wants a change of state:
  - “Stop always being online in your room (you’ve done it enough already).”

This sentence-final 了 is often called “change-of-state 了” and frequently appears in complaints or requests to stop some ongoing habit.

Are there any tone changes in this sentence I should know about, especially for 不要 (bùyào) and 一直 (yìzhí)?

Yes, there are standard tone-sandhi patterns:

不要
- Written as bùyào (4th + 4th).
- In normal, unemphasized speech, 不 before another 4th tone is usually pronounced in the 2nd tone:
  - búyào.
- If you really want to emphasize the “don’t!”, you might keep it as a stronger bùyào.
一直
- 一 changes tone depending on the following syllable.
- Before a 2nd tone (直, zhí), 一 is pronounced in the 4th tone:
  - yìzhí (4th + 2nd).
- That’s why it’s yìzhí, not yīzhí or yízhí.

So, a natural pronunciation for the whole sentence is roughly:

nǐ búyào yìzhí zài fángjiān lǐ shàngwǎng.