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Jemaasjr Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

"is" in a Chinese language

I saw a move once where a Chinese character who did not speak good English said things like, "He big," when an English speaker would say, "He is big." I am wondering if this is authentic. If a Chinese person knew English words but not English grammar, would he be apt to say it that way because his native language has no "is."

John
  

Top answer

This is interesting... " ; here the "is" is required. But I think this only exists in literary output

— ESLBeginner

  • This is interesting...
  • " ; here the "is" is required.
  • But I think this only exists in literary output
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4 Answers
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This is interesting...

I think if that person meant "he looks like an giant", it should be something like "he very big" / "he quite big" / "he so big" / "he really big" - translated literally; an adverb is required

But assuming he was playing poker, he got a 5 and another one got a 4, then you could say "he big" - which means "his is bigger"


And in a special, parti
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And, the "is" is needed if the adj. is followed by a noun:

  • He is a nice person ( equivalent to "he very nice" )
also needed when there's no adjective:

  • The Sun is a sphere
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Hmm, your observation is partially correct. There's no "is" in context such as this in Chinese, contexts that involves attributes, conditions, situations etc. (there may be more, but that's all I can think of now. Maybe other Chinese can help clarify, or even dispute it. Really, I haven't thought about this before). However, I think when it comes to stating facts, "is" (or Be-verb) is supplied. F
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Yes... and I think that people would say " I very happy " instead of " I happy " - an adverb is required here.
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