"这个故事不是真的。"
Translation:This story isn't true.
12 Comments
This sentence has an uncanny melody to it. Something like 'AB CD CD AB'. I love it! Zhège gùshì bùshì zhēn de. :)
Thanks for the translation in Pinyin :) I can speak but can't read/write and it takes me a solid 10 to figure out what a sentence is trying to say without Pinyin. I wish duo would get Chinese out of Beta and add Pinyin.
Just a heads up to remind you that Google Translate is not the best tool to study the actual tones of pinyin... In your example I have already spotted the error in bùshì.
不 usually has the fourth tone (falling tone) when it is used on its own. E.g. 不好
However, the tone CHANGES when the word that follows 不 is a fourth tone word. You will have to read 不 with a second tone (rising tone). Examples: 不要、不錯、不是、不再、不認識。
In your case, 不是 should be bu (/) shi ().
As said above, addition of Pinyin would be extremely useful in teaching of these tonal rules
623
I agree.
In addition, when looking up 不 in a dictionary like the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (现代汉语词典), you will find it under bù, not bú, and there is a notice telling you to change the tone before a falling tone character. So in the dictionary 不对 and 不是 are annotated with bùduì and bùshì respectively, but pronounced as búduì and búshì, and from this prospective both annotated pinyin and pronunciation provided by Google Translate are correct.
PS: I find it may be a little bit like Japanese particles – は, を and へ are pronounced as ha, wo and he respectively, while as particles they are pronounced as wa, o and e.
@DariusLee3 Thank you for pointing that out. It was indeed very careless of me not to notice the wrong tone mark before posting the transliteration. Perhaps it was also the excitement about the lyrical sentence that made me ignore it.
Google translate is quite useful for this purpose. It is good for translating words but not long sentences for sure.
If you're on a computer (as opposed to a phone, say), Zhongwen Chinese Popup Dictionary is a good browser extension that allows you to hover your mouse pointer over a character and see the pronunciation as well as the translation.
Glad it was helpful. :) I generally use Google Translate whenever the audio isn't very clear and I need to refer to Pinyin. There are also quite a few extensions (I use Chrome) for converting Hanzi to Pinyin.
It would certainly make the course a bit easier if they added Pinyin but considering the amount of time and effort it would take to do that and the fact that we are already taught Pinyin for every single character introduced, the idea doesn't seem worthwhile to me. Happy learning!
It seems as though that should be a possibility, though I'd be interested in a native speaker's take on the difference in nuance between "真的" and "真实的" in this context.
This is not a true story. Is perfectly correct.... When will you see it???
