Chinese Question 2 , My friend is beautiful

[jeff61177]

Anyways, you should learn how to say "我是同性恋“ 还是 ”你也是同性恋吗“。

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

@jeff61177 谁是同性恋？

[lindansucks]

sexy

[beensolongg]

Piggy老師又漂亮又可愛！

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

@beensolongg 我不是PIGGY老師!! 

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

@beensolongg 謝謝啦~ 可是我不叫Piggy耶!

[beensolongg]

@PeggyTeachesChinese 那你叫什麼。

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

@beensolongg 我叫 Peggy :)

[beensolongg]

@PeggyTeachesChinese 有何 區別？



[Enjali1]

Peggy I love your videos! You teach me a lot. :)

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

@Enjali1 Thanks for watching~~ :)

[parafuso79]

Peggy Lao shi hen piao liang!

So, would it be redundant to say, "...shi hen piao liang" instead of, "...hen piao liang"? Just trying to figure out why "shi hen..." is wrong. :) Thx

[iamxiaoli]

Oh Peggy, you are so good at this.

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

@iamxiaoli Xie xie. Have you watched my other lessons?

[abritishguy83]

Peggy  lao shi ni hao cool!

[Glossika]

Very Cute!!! Hey Peggy, that guy's pronunciation and tones werereally good, give him 5 stars for that!!! Yeah, those adjectives in Chinese are predicates and already include the BE verb in the meaning, so don't need it.

[dadasopher]

I like your videos. You have really good energy. How would I say "you have good energy" in Chinese?

[californiaengineer]

你的精力很好。

ni3 de jing1 li4 hen3 hao3

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

Or you can say

'ni3 hen3 you3 huo2 li4' (你很有活力)

- you very have energy/ spirit (literal meaning)

- you are very energetic!

[californiaengineer]

huo2 （活） = be alive

li4 (力) = power i.e. manpower (人力）or machine (机）

therefore:

huo2 （活） + li4 (力) = huo2 li4 (活力)

[MarkAllendotnet]

I've actually found that "hen3" is often translated as "very" - but the more I study Mandarin I think it should be considered as an adverbial "to be." ("is") Basically "hen" seems to be used as "is" when combined with an adjective like "cold" or "pretty" or basically any adjective. For a native English speaker this reduces the confusion like the fellow in your video had (as did I). What do you think?

[TheCrazyStudent]

As another language student who are kind of interested in the grammatical aspects of languages as well, I have to say that with your way of thinking, you will only be fooling yourself.

'hen' translates into 'very', which is an adverb. 'is' (from 'to be') is a verb and not even the same wordclass.

There is something called "adjectival verbs". What this is, basically, is an adjective with the verb 'to be' sort of "built into" the verb. Therefore, the 'is' in such a sentence is not needed.

[MarkAllendotnet]

Never heard of an adjectival verb, interesting. However, there is a simple test for what I'm saying. Can you say wo liang as "I'm cold?" If not, then the "is" is not built into the adjective and requires "hen" which means hen is actually acting as the "is." - right?

[TheCrazyStudent]

Even though "wo liang" is correct in theory, "hen" is often added to more clearly mark that this is not a negating statement. The Chinese "hen" doesn't have such a strong meaning of "very" as this word has in English.

In a negative case, it's perfectly alright to skip the "hen" without making the sentence sound awkward.

Take gaoxing (happy) as an example.

wo bu gaoxing - I am not happy

wo bu hen gaoxing - I am not very (=particularly) happy

wo hen bu gaoxing - I am very un-happy

[Glossika]

You can say: wo liang le (I'm cold now), or wo zhu liang (I've come down with a cold).

You cannot say: wo bu hen gaoxing. Impossible word order. Careful, Chinese is picky about word order.

CrazyStudent maybe you can come analyze some of my videos, much appreciated.

[TheCrazyStudent]

So as you can see, the fact that you really can't say "wo liang" without making the sentence sound strange doesn't mean that the "hen" has the meaning of "is". Instead, what this proves is that "very" is used much more frequently in Chinese than it is in English.

[TheCrazyStudent]

What I am writing here is more or less coming directly from my grammar books (I have more than one book saying the same thing, by explaining it in this way).

And of course, just the fact that "very" is an adverb and "to be / is" is a verb pretty much says it all; There is just no way that "hen" can take the meaning of "is".

[MarkAllendotnet]

Interesting. Boy, you really live up to your name (handle) don't you? ;)

[TheCrazyStudent]

lol! Well, I guess I can be a little bit extreme sometimes when it comes to understanding the theoretical aspect behind a language I am studying. I just can't keep away from analyzing everything into molecule-level. :) That's just me. There seems to be many people who just like to skip all grammar and jump straight into content all the time, but I don't like that approach. I find it much more interesting to also learn about a language, rather than just learning the language, so to speak.

[TheCrazyStudent]

The same thing can be found in Japanese. "kore wa kawaii!" = "This is cute", however, the word for 'is' (desu) can not be found in that japanese sentence. This is because kawaii is a kind of adjectival verb, already having 'is' built into the adjective itself and is therefore not needed to complete the sentence in casual conversation.

我很好

我 - I

很 - very

好 - 'to be' good (adjectival verb)

= I 'am' very good

[gamesrgreat]

lmao you complimented the dog twice.

[TheCrazyStudent]

え？ペッギー先生は日本語も話せますか？わ～、すごい！全然知ら­なかったので、ちょっとびっくりしました。ペッギー先生は日本に­住んだことあるかな。

とにかく、この良い中国語のビデオレッスンを本当にありがとうご­ざいます。

(Just thought I'd "go with the flow" as well) ＾＿＾

[javierenchina]

peggy laoshi hen piao liang :-D

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

xie xie. :)

[californiaengineer]

Antarctic Sake: 你的中文很不错！ 我可以 听你！加油！ 加油！

[californiaengineer]

Translation: Antarctic Sake,

Your Chinese is not bad. I can understand you. Don't give up and don't be discouraged!

[ThaSuperstarClub]

Yep. Chinese is becoming more popular everyday. It is the most spoken language in the world, right?

[californiaengineer]

Chinese is a great language. Being bilingual carries multiple rewards and advantages.

[tastybrain]

nice outfit!

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

Xie xie ni! :) It was one of my 20th birthday gifts. :*)

[Supenmanu]

I don't get it... why are you guys writing in Japanese?

Anyway Peggy, ni shi fei chang piao liang (-:

(did i say this write or should i have done it without the shi? )

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

It began with a question in Japanese, so now we are all going with the flow. haha. :P

[BloodFalcon2k7]

Peggy老师会说日语吗？

我也会说一点儿。

Does it make sense?

As always, thank you for your video!

[panther9mm]

ペンギン先生は素敵な女性ですね。　頭はいいし、美人だし。

[BloodFalcon2k7]

ペ・・・ペンギン先生？

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

いいえ、台湾です。

[panther9mm]

ペンギンがすき。

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

どうも　ありがとう　ございます。

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

我只會說一點點，還在努力中！：）

[loki2504]

フランス語も勉強しましたか ^_^　私の母語です

Si tu piges le français ça serait super fun si tu viens en Europe pour visiter tous ces beaux pays européens!

[loki2504]

どういたしまして。あなたも一人で日本語を勉強しましたか。どの­位勉強しましたか。

本とにあなたのビデオ大好きです

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

一年で大学で日本語を勉強しました。(I wish I could use 日本語 to express what I wanted to say, but my 日本語 is bad.) I hope to continue to learn Japanese. :*)

[loki2504]

Peggylaoshu とてもたのしいですよ !!! 所でお仕事は何ですか。

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

私の仕事は学生ですよ。:)

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

私の動画がを見ていただき、有難うございます。

[coolsteven2]

日语！！！！！

[panther9mm]

英語が上手ですね。アメリカに行ったことがありますか？

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

どうも　ありがとう　ございます。

アメリかへ　行きませんでした。　台湾で　英語を　勉強しました。

[5614]

I like the idea of this! Nice, keep it up!

[PeggyTeachesChinese]

Thank you! :)

[shayanxtra]

First! My Teacher is beautiful.