"What is this movie about?"
Translation:这个电影是关于什么的？
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1708
Mainly 2 ways:
1) As a pronoun of sth./sb. understood or implied.
这只狗是卖帽子的。
This is a dog that sells hats.
2) As a modal particle to conclude a statement.
海龟是不吃香蕉的。
Turtles do not eat banana.
- 61
It is necessary in the sense that it makes the question less formal (since movies are casual, unlike, say, meetings).
They should be more consistent about it, then. They miss this in their translation of "What is this business meeting mainly about?"
X 是关于什么 is also a correctly formed sentence, though the underlying grammar structure is different. That said, X 是关于什么的 is the more common form.
- 1708
IMHO I cannot agree that's grammatically correct. Of course if someone says it without 的 I won't be mad. In order to speak natural sounding Chinese such tiny bits are somehow important.
Whenever we say A 是 B, both sides of 是 should be a noun, a clause or an equivalent. We cannot use a noun determinant.
e.g.
这支笔是红 is wrong
we can only say
这支笔是红的
"this pen is a red one"
for saying "This pen is red".
Compare these correct sentences:
这是一部很闷的电影
这部电影很闷
这部电影是很闷的
这是一部关于中国的电影
这部电影关于中国
这部电影是关于中国的
You are correct that my statement was inaccurate. As is suggested in your examples, the 是…的 is probably in fact an A 是 B sentence structure with the B noun phrase elided. You will sometimes see 是 omitted in such sentences, but not 的. I probably should not have posted so late at night! Thanks for correcting my error!
- 61
People use it as in the example for casual, informal situations, so it's appropriate for outings with friends, but less so for meetings and work events.
- 1708
Yes, except that i don't ike 个 for a movie.
If everything is counted by 个, we don't need to have classifier in Chinese.
- 2177
No, the measure word for movies is 部, although 部 and 不 are pronounced the same way (bù)
这个电影关于什么... should be accepted... not necessary to include the particle 是。。。的 in between as an obligatory translation
Pity I can't see how to 'bookmark' this from within Duolingo, as then I may be able to go over & over it to try to understand the explanations. But I have an exercise to finish
- 587
The common classifier for movie is 部 bù. 这部电影是关于什么的 is definitely more commonly said among the ethnic Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore.
