别和不要

tamutom
July 29, 2010, 03:55 PM posted in General Discussion

Helen,

I hope I have finally found the correct place to post questions directly to you.

In the exersices for "Don't Do That":

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I matched bie2 (leave/depart/separate/distinguish/classify/other/another/do not/must not/to pin) with “don’t,” and matched 不要 bu4yao4 (don’t!/must not) with “do not.” The corrected answers indicated it should have been the other way around, and so does the Hanzi Bar dictionary. I don’t understand that because both the English words are the same, just contracted. Could it have to do with degree of formality?

-Tom

 

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helencao_counselor
July 29, 2010, 09:14 PM

你好Tom!

Yes, here is exactly the correct place where you can post questions directly to me. :)

Actually there's no such big difference between the two words. Both 别 and 不要 has the same meaning of 'to  dissuade or to forbid', the difference is that 别 is and adverb, while 不要 is a auxilliary verb.