bear234
about "你很高“---where is the verb? an american friend posed this quesion, seriously this question really confused me a lot. fortunately i got it at last. so i write this article to help chinese learners. when we describe a state of something without any emotion, we use this structure: subject + be + adj -----structure a when we describe a state of something with some emotion, we use this structure: subject + verb(not be) + adv ------ structure b for example, u r tall. 你是高的。-----structure a 你长得高。-----structure b (长 means grow, 得 must be used for the structure "verb + adv") when we talk, we almost always use the structure b. for example, when u meet the child of your friend, u find that he is tall, then u gonna say: u r tall. but for the same case, chinese gonna say: 你长得高.--structure b (they never ever say 你是高的) "u r tall" is a state, right? u dont want to express any emotion, right? why do chinese use the structure b, instead of a? i think we could say this is the difference of culture. in china, when we say: u r tall. it means that u are taller than what i thought. so here, we want to express a kind of emition: ur size shocked me. so we use the structure b. what is "to describe a state without any emotion" for chinese? in other words, when do chinese use the structure a? look at this: tree is tall. flower is short. for example, when u teach a little baby english, maybe u gonna say: tree is tall, flower is short. in this case, chinese gonna say: 树是高的。花是矮的。-------structure a but when u see a tree and u want to tell ur friend that this tree is tall by chinese, u must say: 这棵树长得高。-----structure b it means that u want to express that u are shocked by its size.
Nov 24, 2014 12:42 PM
Corrections · 2
Actuallty wed probably not say ""You are so tall"", rather wed say smething like ""youve got so tall"" or ""youve grown so tall""
January 30, 2015

for the structure b, we often omit the verb (ofc and the 得)
so 你长得高 become 你高
for example,
- 你高吗?(r u tall?)
- 我高。(i am tall)
in fact, they should be like this:
- 你长得高吗?
- 我长得高。
as u see, we omit the verb 长.

for chinese, when we want to use many adjs to describe something, we usually use structure b.
because we want to express some kind of emotion. it means that we are shocked by its state------高(tall)、快(fast)、美丽(beautiful)etc
as we are expressing some kind of emotion, we almost always add 很(very) before the adv.
so u can find lots of structure b with 很 in chinese.
这座楼很高。-----这座楼(盖得)很高。
这个女人很美丽。---这个女人(长得)很美丽。
这辆车很快。---这辆车(跑得)很快。
天空很蓝。----天空(呈现得)很蓝。

so just remember this: when u want to describe a state of something, plz use structure b with omitting the verb: subject + (很) + adv.

grammatically, 很 is just an adv, we could use it or not. but in this structure, we could say: plz use it.----because u are expressing some kind of emotion, u want to highlight that kind of state.

November 24, 2014
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