Noun + adjective + 得 + 不得了
We just started working on Chapter 19 of Integrated Chinese last week, and part of the homework had us practicing the phrase 不得了 (bùdéliǎo), which means extremely or exceedingly. It usually follows this pattern:
noun + adjective + 得 + 不得了。
Noun is extremely adjective.
挪威冷得不得了。
Nuówēi lěng de bùdéliǎo.
Norway is extremely cold.
李友用功得不得了。
Lǐ Yǒu yònggōng de bùdéliǎo.
Li You is extremely hardworking.
This sentence pattern is very useful. In fact, I’ve even been able to use it with one of my coworkers. If they receive a suspicious email, I encourage the users I support to send the email to me to see if it is legitimate or if it’s a scam. This morning, a 中国人 coworker sent me an email that was suspicious, and I replied:
我觉得它坏得不得了。
I think it’s extremely bad.
Maybe it’s overkill to describe a spam email, but it was a good chance to practice, and she complimented my Chinese 🙂
Hi there,
How are you? I was searching for Chinese learning online and found your site.
(It’s awesome you shared your tips in Chinese, English and Pinyin;)
It’s funny, we are now making an infographic about Chinese learning. We are asking 30-50 bloggers the Top Three Resources they use to learn Chinese. Can I send you an email to give you a bit more details? A short feedback is good enough.
Either way, thanks for sharing awesome Chinese learning tips here! Have a nice weekend 😉
Yang
There are so many good resources, it’s hard to put a limit on them. Despite that, my top three resources are:
1. Chinese class at a local college
2. Anki
3. Online Chinese-language radio stations
The Chinese class is the most useful, even though it can probably be considered more than one resource. By taking a class, I have a textbook, a workbook, audio clips, homework, quizzes, tests, and a teacher to help make sense of it all. While I think it’s possible to learn a language without taking a class, I think it’s much more difficult. Without a class it would require a student to be much more focused, and less prone to procrastination than I am. 😉
I use Anki to make flashcards of the vocabulary items from the class, and use it to help me review them. Outside of class, this is probably the most useful resource I’ve found.
To help me get used to spoken Mandarin, I like to listen to Chinese 新闻电台 (xīnwén diàntái) news radio stations, many of which are streamed online. Even though my vocabulary is pretty limited, I can usually understand words here and there.