Lesson 2.4: yijing zhunshi

Hi. I'm on lesson 2.4 and I have a question regarding the usage of the word yi3ji1ng. If I remember correctly, yi3ji1ng means already. In the sentence "fe1iji1 yi3ji1ng zhu3nshi2 za4i be3iji1ng ji1cha3ng jia4ngluo3 le", what is the usage of yi3ji1ng? zhu3ngshi2 means ontime, so what exactly does "already ontime" mean? Is it indicating that it happened faster than expected, as in "we are already ontime at the airport?". Thanks!

The airplane can 'already land' and not have landed 'on schedule'. 准时 zhǔn shí indeed means: on-time; punctual(ly); on schedule. You could think of it as: airplane already on-time at beijing airport land le.

Minor notes: 1. It's a bit hard to read your pinyin as written. Per convention, Chinese pinyin tone numbers go at the end of each syllable: bei3 jing1 ji1 chang3 2. jiang4 luo4 <-fourth tone luo* 3. In your second zhun3 shi2, you typed it as zhung3 shi2. Note that there isn't a g on zhun. I think this was an accident. 好好学！ -欧博思

你们好！ Thanks Oggie again for your explanations. Your involvement in our forums is much appreciated! Another thing to point out Christine is that 已经 is often followed by 了 at the end of the sentence. 了 means that an action has been completed and often represents a past tense. Therefore, next time you see 已经, look for the 了 after it in the sentence and it will likely be saying that something "has already happened". 准时 is simply an adverb saying the the action in the sentence has been done punctually. 希望这会帮你！I hope this helps! - Lin Ping