好得多?

pinkfreak
May 02, 2010, 03:06 PM posted in I Have a Question

hii .. i'm new here :)

i have a small question .. if a chinese person says: " 感冒好了没?"

can i say :"感冒好得多" .. is my sentence correct ??

Profile picture
zhenlijiang
May 02, 2010, 03:40 PM

Hi--you want to say "much better, thanks" I guess. I think I would say

好多了,谢谢你的关心。

Hope you'll get input from other people too!

Profile picture
pinkfreak
May 03, 2010, 09:21 AM

yes thats what i want to say

but you see i have already said that sentence to someone and i would like to know if he is laughing at me right now :$

Profile picture
zhenlijiang

* edit * 感冒好得多 sounds to me like you're saying "Having a cold is way better (than having some other sickness or problem. or, better than doing something that would let you avoid catching a cold but that you don't want to do = you'd rather catch a cold, than do that something)", which doesn't answer the question asked.

(Oh so the sentence you already said is 感冒好得多 you mean. Well I guess he got your meaning. If he didn't laugh at you then, he's probably not laughing right now I wouldn't think.)

Profile picture
go_manly

To add to zhenlijiang's answer, I checked for 好得多 on nciku. The three sample sentences they gave all used 比, and indicated that something was better than something else. In English, when you have a cold and say you are 'better', you mean 'improved' - not better than something. I suppose you could say 我今天比昨天好得多.

Which brings me to a question of my own - can the first element in a 比 comparison be omitted? - ie. does 比昨天好得多 make any sense?

Profile picture
pinkfreak

oh my god i am so embarrassed right now

i actually said "having cold is better" ..

i wasn't talking to him face to face ,i sent a text messege to him

he's probably having a good laugh right now

thank you zhenlijiang, i will stop trying to invent sentences now ,will ask you first.

and go_manly, my professor did say that it is used with 比 to compare and she also mentioned the sentence you said "我今天比昨天好得多." but i thought i could shorten it a bit (as i mentioned before i will stop playing with grammer rules)

Profile picture
zhenlijiang

不用谢! I'm no expert. But do post any questions in this group and someone will come up to help I'm sure!

And you do have the right idea, to want to shorten. In Chinese shorter is often, if not always, better. In this case, you didn't need to mention in your reply 感冒 the subject, which was not under question. 好多了,谢谢 ♡ (of course the subject of this sentence can be interpreted as 我, rather than 感冒) is nice and short.

Profile picture
suansuanru

it is not that serious than you may thoght,take it easy! We all know that you are speaking your second language :)

Profile picture
zhenlijiang
May 03, 2010, 09:39 AM

* edit * 感冒好得多 sounds to me like you're saying "Having a cold is way better (than having some other sickness or problem. or, better than doing something that would let you avoid catching a cold but that you don't want to do = you'd rather catch a cold, than do that something)", which doesn't answer the question asked.

(Oh so the sentence you already said is 感冒好得多 you mean. Well I guess he got your meaning. If he didn't laugh at you then, he's probably not laughing right now I wouldn't think.)

Profile picture
go_manly
May 03, 2010, 09:56 AM

To add to zhenlijiang's answer, I checked for 好得多 on nciku. The three sample sentences they gave all used 比, and indicated that something was better than something else. In English, when you have a cold and say you are 'better', you mean 'improved' - not better than something. I suppose you could say 我今天比昨天好得多.

Which brings me to a question of my own - can the first element in a 比 comparison be omitted? - ie. does 比昨天好得多 make any sense?

Profile picture
pinkfreak
May 03, 2010, 10:57 AM

oh my god i am so embarrassed right now

i actually said "having cold is better" ..

i wasn't talking to him face to face ,i sent a text messege to him

he's probably having a good laugh right now

thank you zhenlijiang, i will stop trying to invent sentences now ,will ask you first.

and go_manly, my professor did say that it is used with 比 to compare and she also mentioned the sentence you said "我今天比昨天好得多." but i thought i could shorten it a bit (as i mentioned before i will stop playing with grammer rules)

Profile picture
pinkfreak
May 03, 2010, 11:09 AM

okay so now i would like to call my chinese friend and correct this terrible mistake that i did, can i say

我刚才发现 "感冒好得多" 的意思是我喜欢感冒但是我要说的是"我今天比昨天好得多" "感冒好多了"

and how do i say "i am so embarrassed that i said this" ?

Profile picture
suansuanru
May 03, 2010, 11:20 AM

"i am so embarrassed that i said this"

=不好意思我之前说错了。

 

Profile picture
orangina

I agree, it was a minor error. But! I did write down this handy phrase for the inevitable moment I will need it for having said something truly embarrassing!

Profile picture
suansuanru
May 03, 2010, 11:21 AM

it is not that serious than you may thoght,take it easy! We all know that you are speaking your second language :)

Profile picture
orangina
May 03, 2010, 11:29 AM

I agree, it was a minor error. But! I did write down this handy phrase for the inevitable moment I will need it for having said something truly embarrassing!