"我的哥哥打篮球打得不错。"

Translation: My older brother plays basketball pretty well.

[IgnatiusRyan]

Could someone please explain the syntax? Why is 打 repeated here? Thanks a lot!

[Patrick_Dark]

This seems to be explained in Chinese Grammar Wiki's Degree Complements article: https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Degree_complement#Degree_Complements_with_Objects.

Based on the article, this is a "degree complement with [an] object" where "得不錯" is the degree complement and "籃球" is the object. Since both must be adjacent to the verb ("打"), one must copy the verb to get what is literally, "My older brother plays basketball, plays well.

It also looks like "打" is a special verb that "verbifies" a noun, so "打籃球" (to play basketball) is literally "to basketball" while "打電話" (to call) is literally "to telephone".

[bnbnb2]

+最近总国人只说一样’他篮球打的很不错‘

[SilviaFaja5]

Why is "not bad" not allowed for "不错"?

[SummerYin2]

Then it would be "my older brother plays basketball not bad" which isn't proper English

[Celticfiddleguy]

I think "My older brother isn't bad at (playing) basketball" would be perfectly fine tho

[Nana344213]

"my big brother is not bad at playing basketball" is accepted

[bnbnb2]

不错 means good, not 'not bad'. I donno why but accept it, it is just chinese

[George792719]

Actually in many of the earlier lessons "not bad" is frequently accepted and even supplied as an answer to several questions for 不错

[Rob869844]

Well but 'My older brother plays basketball pretty good' is also not accepted

[MoVprN]

Pretty well and very well?

[KarmaAkabane7757]

why is 得 used at the end instead of 的?

[Elder-Simmons]

The first one is used to modify a verb, while the second is used to show possession (usually)

[CL-16180]

不错 means not bad/decent, not good.

[Xos...]

Is "My brother isn't bad/half bad at basketball" a wrong literal translation? I wrote it that way and got it wrong.

[bnbnb2]

不错 means good, not 'not bad'. I donno why but accept it, it is just chinese

[Janus159341]

Why not "very well" too?

[Yomalyn]

不错 is literally "not bad", as in "not terrible, but not great"--just "ok". "Pretty well" is equivalent because it means "not great, but not bad" --also just ""ok". However, "very well" is more intense/more highly skilled.

[sukku04]

Why My older brother plays basketball very well isn't allowed?

[Clment952517]

So well as well

[Charlie298884]

The word bank does not offer "basketball" so it's impossible to get the answer correct using the word bank.

[e1VpVxkl]

"My elder brother plays basketball pretty well." = Not accepted: 14 dec. 2019. In an other exercise was this the correct answer! Reported.

[MichaelTho775280]

Is there a reason why "My older brother is a pretty good basketball player" is incorrect? I assume it is because of the word "player", but i try stuff like this, as it is more normal to say in English.

[J.Sol.Esp]

What about "alright" as a colloquial synonym of "well"? Isn't "alright" close in meaning to "bu cuo"?

[whsndstalb]

accidentally reported, only to realise it's just because I missed a word. please ignore my report

[leetong0412]

"My older brother plays basketball very well" 也应该可以了. 你们的答案数据库请调整了. You're going to have a lot of mistakes to fix. Perhaps you need to cancel this course, go back and take more time to fix everything.

[Jan863662]

Don't be so harsh Tom. It's beta, it's free, and despite the mistakes I am learning a lot and find the course very useful and quite good fun.