"Their older brother is short."
Translation:他们的哥哥很矮。
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Yeah, they could add a slight stop inbetween, that would be less synthetic.
他们的哥哥矮 should have been accepted. There is no very or short in the sentence.
他们的哥哥矮 doesn't sound native. I think 很 here is necessary. 很 doesn't always mean 'very', it is often just a copula connecting the subject and the predicative adjective.
It appears that 很is used more than sometimes. It seems to be used almost all the time when connecting a noun to an adjective.
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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.
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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?
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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...?
Normally possession is expressed using the particle 的 (de). However, you can omit 的 (de) in these cases:
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A close personal relationship is involved (family, close friends, boyfriends or girlfriends)
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An institutional or organizational relationship is involved (school, work)
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
It is close enough. I have done it without 'de' and Duo said it was correct. Hope this helps!
No language absolutely sticks to the written rules. In this case, it just sounds better to have the 的 after 他们. This is where having conversations with native speakers or watching Chinese TV/films would help.
My understanding is that you need it anytime you're talking about something possessive. Ex. My (我的) instead of I (我)
Hang on, there are two words for short? 短 and 矮
I had no idea. I learned to use 短 when I learned mandarin years ago and never learned 矮 at all. Good thing 矮 doesn’t come up too much in business!
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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.
I put '他们哥哥很矮', was this wrong? I thought since brother was close, that I could omit the '的' particle. They marked it as wrong, so I'd like to know.
in my experience as a native English speaker, we use 'small' as often as 'short' for a person's height.
This is one of many places where it sounds like two sylables were recorded separately and then combined for playback with the second starting before the first is finished.
很 is supposed to be for 'very' not just 'is'. So the tru translation to the English should be 'Their older brother is very tall'
Please help, I'm using Google pinyin keyboard and it's IMPOSSIBLE to write that short 'ǎi' character no matter what.