Breakdown of hánjià hé shǔjià de shíhou, hěn duō dàxuéshēng huí jiā gēn yéye nǎinai yìqǐ guò jié.
Questions & Answers about hánjià hé shǔjià de shíhou, hěn duō dàxuéshēng huí jiā gēn yéye nǎinai yìqǐ guò jié.
时候 (shíhou) is a noun meaning “time” or “moment.” When another word or phrase modifies a noun in Chinese, you almost always need 的 between them.
Structure: (modifier) + 的 + (noun)
- 寒假和暑假 的 时候 = the time of winter and summer vacation
So here:
- 寒假和暑假的时候 ≈ “when it is winter and summer vacation” / “during winter and summer vacation.”
Without 的 (寒假和暑假时候) is generally considered incorrect or at least very unnatural in standard Mandarin. You should keep 的.
时候 turns the phrase into something like “when…” or “the time when…,” making it feel like a general time period.
- 寒假和暑假的时候 = “when it’s winter and summer vacation / during winter and summer vacation”
You can say:
- 在寒假和暑假，很多大学生回家…
This is also grammatical and natural. The difference is subtle:
- With 的时候: feels more like “whenever it’s winter or summer break, (habitually)…”
- With 在: more like “during winter and summer break, (at that time)…”
Both are fine here; 的时候 is very common in “when/during (time)” expressions.
Time expressions in Chinese often come at the beginning of the sentence without any preposition:
- 明天我去北京。= Tomorrow I’m going to Beijing.
- 星期六我们上课。= On Saturday we have class.
So:
- 寒假和暑假的时候，很多大学生…
is perfectly normal: the whole phrase 寒假和暑假的时候 just functions as a time adverbial.
You could add 在:
- 在寒假和暑假的时候，很多大学生…
This is also correct but slightly more formal or heavier. In everyday speech, it’s very common to omit 在 with these time phrases.
和 and 跟 overlap but are used a bit differently:
和 (hé)
- Most often used as “and” to link nouns:
- 我有哥哥和姐姐。= I have an older brother and an older sister.
- That’s exactly how it’s used in 寒假和暑假: “winter and summer vacation.”
- Most often used as “and” to link nouns:
跟 (gēn)
- Very commonly used as “with” when talking about doing something together with someone:
- 我跟朋友一起吃饭。= I eat with my friend.
- That’s what you see in 跟爷爷奶奶一起过节: “celebrate with grandpa and grandma.”
- Very commonly used as “with” when talking about doing something together with someone:
In this sentence:
- 和 is joining two holidays.
- 跟 is indicating companionship (“with”), together with 一起 (“together”).
跟 and 一起 often appear together but do different jobs:
- 跟 = “with (someone)”
- 一起 = “together”
Patterns:
- 跟 + person + 一起 + verb = do something together with someone
So:
- 跟爷爷奶奶一起过节
= “celebrate the festival together with grandpa and grandma.”
Alternatives:
- 跟爷爷奶奶过节 – OK, means “celebrate with grandpa and grandma.”
- 和爷爷奶奶一起过节 – also OK, replace 跟 with 和; here 和=“with.”
Using both 跟 and 一起 is extremely common and sounds natural; it emphasizes doing the action together with someone.
- 去 (qù) = “to go (to some place)” (no implication of returning).
- 回 (huí) = “to return / go back (to a place you’re from or were at before).”
In this sentence, students are going back home, so 回 is the natural choice:
- 回家 = go back home / return home
- 去家 is basically not used; we don’t say that in standard Mandarin.
You could say:
- 回到家 – “return to home / (arrive) back home” (emphasis on the arrival).
But 回家 is simpler and completely normal here.
Both involve going back home, but there’s a nuance:
回家
- Focus on the action of going back home.
- Very general and common: “go home, return home.”
回到家
- Emphasizes the endpoint / arrival: “(finally) got back home / reached home.”
- 到 (dào) adds a sense of completion.
In your sentence, the focus is on the general habit (“many college students go home to spend the festival”), so 回家 is the natural, neutral choice.
- 很多大学生 is the normal, natural way to say “many college students.”
- When 很多 directly modifies a noun, we usually omit 的:
Examples:
- 很多学生
- 很多问题
- 很多中国人
很多的大学生 is not strictly ungrammatical, but:
- It sounds more marked or literary, and in many contexts, a bit awkward.
- In everyday speech and writing, people almost always say 很多大学生.
So you should treat 很多 + noun (without 的) as the standard pattern.
In Chinese, when you use 很多 (“many / a lot of”) directly with a plural countable noun, the measure word is often omitted:
- 很多学生 (not 很多个学生 in most cases)
- 很多老师
- 很多人
You would typically add a measure word when:
- You want to be more specific:
- 很多个大学生 – “many individual college students” (emphasizing counting them as separate units; sounds less natural here).
- Or with some nouns that pretty much always need a measure word.
For 学生, 人, 朋友, 问题, etc., 很多 + noun without a measure word is the standard, most natural form.
Here, 过 (guò) is an ordinary verb meaning “to pass / spend (time, a day, a festival)”.
- 过节 = “to celebrate a festival / to spend a holiday.”
- Similar expressions:
- 过年 – celebrate/spend the New Year
- 过生日 – celebrate a birthday
This 过 is not the same as the aspect marker 过 (which means you have done something before, at least once):
- 我去过中国。= I have been to China (before).
- Here 过 is an aspect particle, not a lexical verb.
In 过节, 过 is simply the main verb: “(to) celebrate / spend (a festival).”
In Chinese family terms:
- 爷爷 (yéye) = paternal grandfather (father’s father)
- 奶奶 (nǎinai) = paternal grandmother (father’s mother)
So 爷爷奶奶 together normally refers to your paternal grandparents.
Maternal grandparents are:
- 外公 (wàigōng) – mother’s father
- 外婆 (wàipó) – mother’s mother
Sometimes in casual modern usage, people may use 爷爷奶奶 more loosely when context is clear, but the standard, precise meaning is paternal grandparents.
Chinese doesn’t mark tense the way English does. Instead, we infer time from:
Time expressions
- 寒假和暑假的时候: “during winter and summer break” – a recurring situation.
Aspect markers / adverbs (none here, so it’s more general).
Because:
- The time phrase refers to regular recurring breaks, and
- The sentence is in simple form without past/future markers,
we naturally interpret it as a general/habitual fact:
- “During winter and summer vacation, many college students (typically) go home and celebrate with their grandparents.”
If you wanted to emphasize future, you could add 会:
- 寒假和暑假的时候，很多大学生会回家跟爷爷奶奶一起过节。
= “will (tend to) go home and celebrate…”
Yes, that’s grammatically fine:
- 寒假和暑假的时候，很多大学生回家跟爷爷奶奶一起过节。
- 很多大学生在寒假和暑假的时候回家跟爷爷奶奶一起过节。
Both are natural. The difference is just in focus:
- Original: starts by setting the time frame (“During winter and summer vacation, …”), then comments on what happens.
- Reordered: starts with who (“Many college students”), then states when they do it with 在 + time.
Strikingly, the original word order (time first) is very typical in Chinese, especially in written or slightly more formal contexts.