"他没有孩子。"
Translation:He does not have children.
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Is there a reason that "He does not have a child" is an unacceptable translation?
Almost! ”子” is just the second half of the word "child" - 孩子. To emphasize it to be plural you could add the plural marker ”们” (men) which has a neutral tone.
That being said, most of the time the context of the sentence will decide if things are plural or not, so ”们” isn't usually very necessary.
So this sentence is saying "He does not have (any number of) children." In English, if someone said "He doesn't have a child." Then someone could make the joke "Well, does he have TWO children?" But in Chinese, the all-encompassing phrase is ”他没有孩子” Which definitively marks him as having exactly 0 children. In which case, it may raise some eyebrows if you were to state that he does not have a specifically plural amount of children with "他没有孩子们”
Not a native speaker, just what I've picked up. Corrections are welcome!
Just had that marked wrong myself. I can't believe they still haven't fixed that one ...
In most Asian languages all nouns can be equally as singlar as they are plural. The only exceptions are when counting words and numbers are used as pronouns
William Shakespeare Quote
William Shakespeare “He has no children.—All my pretty ones? Did you say all?—O Hell-kite!—All? What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, At one fell swoop?”
Why is "她没有孩子" wrong. This is listening section, so how to distinguish 他 and 她?
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What is the difference between 孩子, 孩, and 子? According to my dictionary they all mean child.
I'm not a native, and I can't say this applies in Chinese as much as Japanese, but essentially 子 means child as in 猫子 (kitten), 狗子 (puppy), and when written alone it can technically mean mouse when speaking about the zodiac signs. 孩 however, only applies to human children, especially babies and young infants. When combined, it's the Chinese compound for someone's child (ren), probably the same way 弟弟 and 妹妹 are 2 characters just because before writing, the word was 2 syllables. I'm not fluent though so please don't take this as the ultimate truth, just as an educated guess from years of studying 漢字
You can technically say all 3, but in most cases 孩子 is the most typical and formal
agh, I keep writing 他们有孩子， when of course he says 他没有孩子. It's often hard to hear precisely what they say sometimes.
Me too, 没 and 们 sound so similar, and the context usually doesn't help :(
I guess when we tune our ears to tell apart the short i and the nasal n, and the neutral vs 2nd tone.... it's a long way
I got this correct but I have a question.
The 2nd character 没 is used.
Why isn't 不 used?
"He has not children." is the same meaning as " He does not have children. " The answers should be based on standard English,not only Chinese-English.