丹在与琳达见面前打了几乎一年电话。

Dan had started calling Linda almost a year before they met up.

Source: Tatoeba

Sentence Composition

1 dān
  1. red
  2. pellet
  3. powder
  4. cinnabar
2 zài
  1. to exist; to be alive
  2. (of sb or sth) to be (located) at
  3. (used before a verb to indicate an action in progress)
=3 variant of
=3
  1. and
  2. to give
  3. together with
=3 to take part in
4 琳达 Lín a transliteration of the English, French, German, Norwegian, or Swedish female given name Linda
5 见面 jiànmiàn to meet; to see each other

classifier:

6 qián
  1. front
  2. forward
  3. ahead
  4. first
  5. top (followed by a number)
  6. future
  7. ago
  8. before
  9. BC (e.g. 293)
  10. former
  11. formerly
=7
  1. (loanword) dozen
  2. Taiwan pr.
=7
  1. a semantically light, transitive verb that is combined with various grammatical objects to form compound verbs and verb-object phrases with a diverse range of meanings (e.g. 打伞 sǎn "to hold an umbrella", 打电话 diànhuà "to make a phone call", 打针 zhēn "to get an injection", 打手套 shǒutào "to knit gloves", 打气 "to inflate")
  2. to hit; to strike
  3. to fight
  4. (coll.) from; since (as in 打那以后 hòu "since then")
=8 le
  1. (completed action marker)
  2. (modal particle indicating change of state, situation now)
  3. (modal particle intensifying preceding clause)
=8 liǎo
  1. to finish
  2. (used with or after a verb to express (im)possibility, as in 忘不了 wàngbuliǎo "cannot forget")
  3. (literary) (usually followed by a negative such as or ) completely (not); entirely (not); (not) in the least
  4. to understand clearly (variant of liǎo)
=8 liǎo
  1. (of eyes) bright
  2. clear-sighted
  3. to understand clearly
=8 liào unofficial variant of liào
9 几乎 almost; nearly; practically
10
  1. one
  2. single
  3. a (article)
  4. as soon as
  5. entire; whole; all; throughout
  6. "one" radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 1)
  7. also pr. yāo for greater clarity when spelling out numbers digit by digit
=11 Nián surname Nian
=11 nián year

classifier:

=11 nián
  1. grain
  2. harvest (old)
  3. variant of nián
12 电话 diànhuà
  1. telephone
  2. phone call
  3. phone number

classifiers: ,