Question

Does this Chinese make sense(ignore the pinyin mistake)?

Answer 1

Wo xǐhuān hao zúqiú bi měishì zúqiú.

Answer 2

I'm trying to say I like soccer better than foot ball.

Answer 3

I think the best way to say this would be
我足球比美式足球更喜欢打。
wǒ zúqiú bǐ měishì zúqiú gèng xǐhuān dǎ.
I like to play soccer more than American football.

Answer 4

What does gèng mean?

Answer 5

更 gèng means "more."
In English, when saying "more," we usually add "-er" to something. Like "harder" instead of "more hard" or "faster" instead of "more fast."
In Chinese, though, they can't add those "-er" endings, of course, so they place 更 gèng before the verb to indicate that they are making a "more" comparison.
For example:
中文比法文更难。
Zhōngwén bǐ Fǎwén gèng nán.
The above sentence LITERALLY translates to "Chinese than French more hard."
In English we would write "Chinese is harder than French."
Above, 比 bǐ means "than." So while in English we put "more" and "than" TOGETHER, as "more than," in Chinese "than" is placed between the two nouns while "more" is usually at the end of the sentence, separate.
Another example is
我现在比以前更开心。
Literal order is: "I now than before more happy."
Which in English we would say "I'm happier [right] now than I was before."
Does that make sense?

Answer 6

Oh, I forgot to put the pinyin for the second example sentence!
wǒ xiànzài bǐ yǐqián gèng kāixīn .

Answer 7

Oh okay so it replaces "er" by adding "more = geng" before a verb(something like this)

Answer 8

How do you write pinyin so fast? I have to copy and paste it all the time.

Answer 9

I actually don't have a pinyin or hanzi keyboard so what I do is I use the Google Translate one (I put in Chinese --> Chinese) and then copy/paste the pinyin it displays after I type in my sentence.

Answer 10

So basically you mastered the Chinese characters O.O
Can you help me with this too?
I want to use this phrase that my teacher gave me, she said it meant outside.
zài...de wàimiàn
The thing is, I want to say "a man is out side"
Do I put the word "man" between zài and de wàimiàn?

Answer 11

Mastering the characters isn't that hard once you get deeper into the language, don't worry :)
So in the structure "zài...de wàimiàn" the "..." is where you place the area OUTSIDE OF WHICH the thing is.
So for example, to say "Outside the house" one would say:
在房子的外面
zài fángzi de wàimiàn
In which 房子 fángzi means "house."
Now, to say that SOMEONE/SOMETHING is outside the house, you would place that someone/something BEFORE 在 zài.
Now let me tell you, it may be best to say, instead of "A man is outside," to say "THERE IS a man outside the house." (Or, outside whatever building or place you're using in context.)
So for that, we must add:
"there is" = 有 yǒu (also means "have/has" as in "I have a pencil on my desk", but can also be used to say "There is a pencil on my desk.)
"a"/"one" = 一个 yīgè
"man" = 男人 nánrén

SO to say "There is a man outside the house" put all that together to get:
有一个男人在房子的外面.
yǒu yīgè nánrén zài fángzi de wàimiàn.
Voila! There you go.

Answer 12

Voila ...whatever that means, jk. Anyway is fángzi required? If I take that out of the sentence wouldn't it be like "There is a man outside"? I hope so.

Answer 13

Leaving out fángzi would make it sound very awkward/clumsy...If you really want to omit the PLACE outside of which the man is, then it might be better to say
有一个男人在之外。
yǒu yīgè nánrén zhī wài.

Answer 14

Oops -- there should be zài in the pinyin below that sentence.

Answer 15

Okay I'll use the first sentence. Thanks a lot aisha:)