以来 - Chinese dictionary says noun. "Since" in English dictionary says preposition, conjunction. Distinction?

Question

A couple of Chinese dictionaries I used says for 以来, part of speech is 名 (noun). Since in an English dictionary says preposition first. Is it incorrect to assume a direct correlation between parts of speech between Chinese and English?

Answer 1

Good question. Let's start from the PREPOSITION.

The definition of a preposition is a word or phrase that connects a noun or pronoun to a verb or an adjective in a sentence. They are usually short words, and they normally are found in front of nouns.

e.g. Since 2 years ago, I have starting Chinese language learning. or

I have starting Chinese language learning since 2019.

SINCE + noun, shows that it is definitely a preposition.

But we cannot put 以来 in front of nouns. The only way is noun + 以来。It is always attached short words which indicate time somehow. Like 2年以来，建国以来，进入21世纪以来.....

Actually, ....以来 is the simple way of the structure 自从....以来. You can say also: 自从建国以来， 自从21世纪以来..... So, I suggest that better take 自从=SINCE as the same preposition function.

Answer 2

Hi, I'm speaking both Mandarin Chinese and English, so from my personal understanding, “以来” could be interpreted in the same meaning as "since" when it means "starting from a certain time in the past until now", and there is common sentence format in Chinese "自从...以来“, which exactly means "from sometime in the past... until present"; but when "since" is used as "because", it is completely different from "以来".

Hope this could help for your understanding :)