"为什么人喜欢自拍？"
Translation:Why do people like taking selfies?
10 Comments
486
I am a native Chinese speaker. This sentence in Chinese is unnatural. The word "people" would sound more natural if it is replaced by "人们" or "大家". Reported on 7/22/18
I agreed with you. Sounds unnatural, though it makes sense. If say "為什麼人喜歡...", maybe they're having a serious talk. It's just my feeling when I heard it. For example, 為什麼人總是喜歡做些浪費的事情? In this situation, I would say like that.
It's probably because modern Chinese prefers double-character compounds to single characters.
Is 自拍 strictly a verb? Or can this also be translated as "Why do people like selfies"? I always thought it was a noun and that "take a selfie" would be "拍自拍“ even though it's redundant. Is that correct?
Good question, in my opinion are both right. The words in Chinese aren't divised strickly, some words can be both verbs and nouns. So I think, you can say "selfies" or "take a selfie", it doesn't bother Chinese speaker. For us, it's the same.
Apparently, 自拍 is the verb. 自拍照 (zì pāi zhào) is the noun. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cud5JCUWug
