Learn Hardcore Chinese: tā ná zhe shǒujī zài gōngyuán lǐ sànbù. - He is holding his phone while taking a walk in the park.

拿 (ná) = to hold, to take
拿着 (názhe) = holding (and continuing to hold)
It describes that his hand is in the state of holding the phone while he does something else.

Compare:

他拿着手机在公园里散步。
He is walking in the park while holding a phone (the holding continues during the walk).
他拿手机在公园里散步。
Grammatically possible, but sounds less natural; it tends to feel more like “he (takes/holds) a phone and walks in the park” without clearly highlighting the continuous “while holding” idea.

So here, 着 emphasizes that the holding is ongoing at the same time as the walking.

Is 着 (zhe) here the same as the English “-ing”, like “holding” or “walking”?

Not exactly. Both relate to ongoing actions, but they work differently.

着 attaches to a verb and marks a continuous state:
- 拿着 = to be in the state of holding
- 穿着 = to be wearing
- 开着 = to be switched on / open
English “-ing” has several uses (progressive tense, gerund, participle). Chinese doesn’t have tense in the same way.

In this sentence:

The ongoing “walking” is actually expressed by 散步 with context (and optionally things like 在, 正在, etc. in other sentences).
The ongoing “holding” is expressed by 着.

So:

拿着 ≈ “(while) holding”
But 着 is not a general “-ing marker” for all verbs; it’s specifically about continuous state.

Why do we have 在公园里 and not just 公园? What does 在 do here?

Here 在 (zài) is a preposition meaning “at / in”, introducing the location.

公园 (gōngyuán) = park
在公园 = in/at the park

The part 在公园里散步 literally means “to stroll at/in the park”.

Compare:

他在公园里散步。
He walks/strolls in the park.
他散步。
He takes a walk / he is walking (no location given).

So 在 in this sentence is not acting as the progressive marker before the verb (as in 他在吃饭 “he is eating”), but as a preposition of location: “in/at the park”.

Why is there a 里 (lǐ) after 公园? What’s the difference between 在公园散步 and 在公园里散步?

里 (lǐ) means “inside”.

在公园散步 = walking at the park
在公园里散步 = walking inside the park

In everyday speech:

Both are common and both usually mean “in the park”.
里 can make the idea of “inside the area” a little clearer or more concrete, but the difference is often very small.

So:

在公园散步 – perfectly natural
在公园里散步 – also very natural, with a slightly stronger sense of “within the park space”

Why is the word order “他拿着手机在公园里散步” and not something like “他在公园里拿着手机散步”? Are both correct?

Both of these are grammatically acceptable:

他拿着手机在公园里散步。
他在公园里拿着手机散步。

The difference is very subtle and mostly about information order:

In (1), 拿着手机 comes first, so it slightly highlights his state/manner (“holding a phone”) as background information, then tells you what he’s doing and where.
In (2), 在公园里 comes right after 他, so the location is introduced earlier; then the manner “holding a phone” comes inside the walking phrase.

Naturalness:

Both are fine in everyday speech.
Phrases like “[Verb + 着] + object” often appear before the main action to describe a background state:
- 他拿着书走进来。= He walked in holding a book.
- 她戴着帽子坐在那儿。= She is sitting there wearing a hat.

So the original word order fits this common pattern: state first, main action after.

Why isn’t there a word for “is” (like am/is/are) in this Chinese sentence?

Chinese does not use 是 (shì) in front of action verbs the way English uses “to be” for continuous tenses.

English: He is walking in the park.
Chinese: 他在公园里散步。 (literally “he at-park stroll”)

Key points:

是 is mainly a linking verb for “A is B” (identification/equation):
- 他是老师。= He is a teacher.
- 这是我的手机。= This is my phone.
For actions like “walk, eat, read”, Chinese usually just uses:
- the verb itself (散步, 吃, 看)
- plus time words, 在/正在, or aspect markers (了, 过, 着) depending on what you want to emphasize.

So:

You do not say: ✗ 他是在公园里散步。 as a simple “He is walking in the park.”
You just say: 他在公园里散步。
And here we have: 他拿着手机在公园里散步。 – same principle.

Why is there no word for “a” before 手机? Shouldn’t it be “a phone”?

Chinese doesn’t have articles like “a/an/the”.

English needs to choose: a phone / the phone / phones.
Chinese usually just says 手机 and lets context tell you if it’s “a phone”, “the phone”, or “phones”.

If you want to be explicit about number, you add a number + measure word:

一部手机 / 一台手机 = one phone
他拿着一部手机在公园里散步。= He is walking in the park holding a (single) phone.

In this kind of general description, it’s very natural to just say 手机 without “a”.

What exactly does 散步 (sànbù) mean? Is it just “to walk”?

散步 literally means “to take a walk / to stroll”, usually in a relaxed, leisure sense.

走 / 走路 = to walk (basic movement, often just “go on foot”)
- 我走路去学校。= I go to school on foot.
散步 = to stroll, to take a walk (for relaxation, exercise, fresh air, etc.)
- 我每天晚上去公园散步。= I go to the park for a walk every evening.

In this sentence:

在公园里散步 = “take a stroll in the park,” not just “walking because you have to get somewhere”.

Does this sentence refer to the present, past, or future? How do we know the tense?

Chinese verbs do not change form for tense (no past/present/future endings).

他拿着手机在公园里散步。 by itself could, in different contexts, be:

He is walking in the park holding a phone.
He was walking in the park holding a phone.
He (often) walks in the park holding a phone. (habit)

The actual time is usually shown by:

Time words: 昨天 (yesterday), 现在 (now), 明天 (tomorrow), 每天 (every day), etc.
Context in the conversation.
Sometimes by aspect markers (了, 过, 着), but they express completion/experience/state, not tense in the English sense.

Examples:

昨天他拿着手机在公园里散步。
Yesterday he was walking in the park holding a phone.
现在他拿着手机在公园里散步。
Right now he is walking in the park holding a phone.

What’s the difference between 他 (tā), 她 (tā), and 它 (tā) if they’re all pronounced the same?

All three are pronounced tā, but they have different characters and uses:

他 = he / him (male or gender-neutral in many contexts)
她 = she / her (female)
它 = it (animals, objects, sometimes abstract things)

In spoken Mandarin:

You only hear tā, so you rely on context to know which one is meant.
In writing, you choose the right character.

In your sentence:

他拿着手机在公园里散步。
By character choice, this clearly means “he” (male or generic “he” if gender is not important).