"My older brother plays basketball pretty well."

Translation: 我的哥哥打篮球打得不错。

[acutedeath]

What is lacking from 我哥哥打篮球不错 ?

[NasuSamaruk0]

These sentences are actually the same things, even if the main sentence contains modifiers (的,得) for stricter purpose of forming sentences.

[DariusLee3]

Better to include the modifiers in formal writing - that is the difference

[spirozh]

Repeating 打 makes it clear that 很不错 is about his playing and not about the game hes playing

[rs_taylor]

Thats clear?

[Drew_Hampton]

If anyone could explain this construction, I would appreciate it. It seems horribly inefficient to me.

[Celticfiddleguy]

Duo's tips are helpful: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/zs/Sports-1/tips

As well as the outside links already posted by hippietrail and Artikyulet.

[DimenErno]

To those who feel like using 打 twice is inefficient, another way to say this is to bring the objective to the front and say "我的哥哥篮球打得不错“

[JonLilly]

打 repeated. Cannot seem to find explanation.

[hippietrail]

Is this about what Chinese Grammar Wiki calls "separable verbs", or is this something else?

https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Separable_verb

[Artikyulet]

It's a little bit about that, and a bit about learning to use the new "de" (得）。 This is "彳部的 ‘得’”， which is used to preface modifiers of verbs. Everything I know about this I learned from this Chinese Pod video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggPbyZN96ss

[William33370]

What about 很会？