The Billy Ocean Question

simonpettersson

I bow before the master punsmith. Truly a pun for the ages.

RE: topic, 突然 is a bit more commonly used in conversations. 忽然 feels a bit more bookish to me. If they were English, 突然 would probably have a Germanic root and 忽然 a Latin one.

changye

According to one of my synonym dictionaries, “突然” is more "sudden" than “忽然”.

bababardwan

呵呵，不好意思，然而当然这就是我自然，然则虽然我知道我应该抵制突然我无法

bababardwan

我曾经认为爱情是徒然的

。。【亚达亚达】。。

。。突然你在爱情

suansuanru

Both of 突然and 忽然 can mean "suddenly". But 突然 is more widely used. And it has more uses than忽然.

1.As Predicate.

We can say 这个事情很突然,but cannot say这个事情很忽然。

2.As Complement

We can say 他问得太突然了。But cannot say他问得太忽然了。

lujiaojie

突然 is an adjective and 忽然 is an adverb, you can say: 他来得很突然, but not 他来得很忽然。

johnb

Hey go_manly, sorry, we have to sleep, too. :) You posted at somewhere around 8pm in the evening on Thursday for us, and we're just getting into work on Friday morning.

Anyway, perhaps this will clear things up for you: http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/28164841

Executive summary: 突然 is an adjective, and can be used in a variety of grammatical roles. 忽然 is an adverb, and can only function as an adverb.

johnb

Ooops, Jiaojie beat me to the punch :)

go_manly

OK, but in your example 他来得很突然 surely 突然 is an adverb, not an adjective. It is modifying the verb 来, and is not modifying a noun. Furthermore, shouldn't any word that is translated ****-ly be an adverb?

lujiaojie

很+adjective， 他来得很突然， here 突然 is an adjective, 很 is an adverb.

Adverb+Verb, 他突然就来了，here 突然 is an adverb. You can aslo say: 他忽然就来了。

simonpettersson

Changye enlightened me on this topic a few weeks ago. Apparently it's an adjective, modifying an unstated "way". Like "The way he comes is very sudden". It's completely ridiculous, since the "way" is never stated, meaning we've got an adjective modifying something that only exists in theory.

Together with the whole "separable verbs" thing (not to speak of "stative verbs"), the only logical conclusion to draw is that Mandarin linguistics is broken. Don't try to understand it. It's an attempt to apply Western linguistic terms to a language that doesn't remotely work in the same way and the result is logical acrobatics like this.

johnb

Right, 他来得很突然 == "The way he came was hurried." Crappy in terms of translation quality, but it gets to the heart of the meaning.

There's a real danger in trying to understand a language via its translation into another, especially two as different as English and Chinese. You have to remember, 突然 is *not* and adjective, it's a 形容词, and 忽然 is *not* an adverb, it's a 副词. Adjective/adverb and 形容词/副词 line up pretty well, but not perfectly, so you're going to have 形容词 doing things that adjectives don't, etc.

Though the entry barrier is relatively high, approaching Chinese in Chinese makes everything a lot easier to manage.

bababardwan

I'm not sure if these examples may help:

http://chinesepod.com/tools/glossary/entry/%E7%AA%81%E7%84%B6

http://chinesepod.com/tools/glossary/entry/%E5%BF%BD%E7%84%B6

go_manly

I had a look, but I'm struggling to take something from them. Can you see the difference?

bababardwan

Sorry mate. I can't really help. I know what you mean by your subjective/objective theory above, but having looked at other examples I don't think it really holds up [ though you may be onto something]. For example from the glossary I linked to:

他忽然感到左腿钻心般地痛。

...I think this would have an element of unexpectedness.

I guess I'm personally more inclined to just go with using 突然 based on having heard it more commonly, and based on the above explanation that it's more versatile grammatically and thus it seems safer to use. It's good to know 忽然 so as to comprehend it when encountered. I think it would be ok to use as an adverb though I guess. Apart from the above grammatical explanation I don't know how beneficial it will be to try and elucidate any other subtle differences [if there are any] for me at this level. I guess many words are just going to be synonyms without major differences. But if there is some significant difference someone can explain then I too would be very interested to know. Thinking about English I guess virtually all synonyms to me do convey subtly different shades of meaning and so I guess it is going to be similar in Chinese. I just feel I'm a very long way off being able to have that level of appreciation. But hopefully the vibe will come with long term exposure. Good on you though mate for getting into it now and striving for every nuance. Now you've raised it I will be very happy if the mystery is solved.

bababardwan

also there is 竟然 which has that unexpected element but not necessarily a sudden element