"Their older brother is short."
Translation:他们的哥哥很矮。
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532
As I understand you always need something to conmect an adjective to a preceding noun and 很 is sort of the default if you don't need anything more specific.
Speaking as a native Chinese speaker, 很 always means "very" to me. Sometimes the verb is implied in Chinese (for example: 她个子高 and 她长得高 both mean "She's tall" though the first sentence contains no verb and is likely more frequently used), so 很 is not needed even if there's no apparent verb in the sentence. This works with most descriptors that come to mind right now.
1628
Where are you from?
I've seen discussions where some Chinese speaking regions have different ways of saying things compared to other places. Is the 很 not used in all Chinese speaking countries or areas?
1428
When is 的 essential? I know that in many cases you can just drop it, but dropping it for this sentence got me a wrong answer...?
Brother is certainly close enough, but Duolingo has yet to implement this aspect of 的 into their lessons. So just always use 的 on duolingo but make a mental note whenever you see it used for close relations. Just repeat these sentences to yourself without the 的 (de) and you should internalize this rule pretty quickly
147
It is wrong. 很 is not "very" but a connection between the noum and the adjective. Imagine this very as "somehow"... because you only say someone is 漂亮(piaoliang) if that is somehow beautiful.
It is omitted in some cases, for example when you use 更(geng), 非常(feichang), 最(zui), 太的(tai+de), etc.
The negative exchange the 很 for 不 . 你很漂亮。你不漂亮。
Speaking as a native Chinese speaker, 很 always means "very" to me. Sometimes the verb is implied in Chinese (for example: 她个子高 and 她长得高 both mean "She's tall" though the first sentence contains no verb and is likely more frequently used), so 很 is not needed even if there's no apparent verb in the sentence. This works with most descriptors that come to mind right now. Just think of the quintessential question "你好吗?" There's no verb in there. 你 is a pronoun, 好 is an adjective and 吗 just makes it a question. Same goes for "你好不好?" No discernible verb there either. And where's the verb in the question "你舒服吗?" ("Are you comfortable?")? Not there. Now, if you add 很 to any of those, you'd be asking a very different question.