the nature of Chinese

[pc2]

你好!
ni hao!

we find Chinese a very interesting language...
but Chinese, although having a simple grammar, has many complications we can't get in syntax.
we are native speakers of Portuguese, and Portuguese is very different from Chinese.

for example:

Chinese:
我想要吃湯。
wo xiang yao chi tang.
I find necessary eat soup.

Portuguese:
eu quero comer sopa.
I want-1st.SG to-eat.INF soup.

"I want to eat soup".

another one:

Chinese:
我喜歡在家看電視。
wo xihuan zai jia kan dianshi.
I like at home watch TV.

Portuguese:

eu gosto de assistir TV em casa.
I like to watch TV at home.

"I like to watch TV at home"

OK...

but, now, look at this phrase:

您住得离这儿远吗？
nin zhu de chi zhe er yuan ma?

meaning: "do you live far away from here?"

how is the litteral translation of this phrase? this syntax is strange... what does each syllable mean?

sometimes, a phrase in Chinese appears in a way that each word means something completely different from the translation.
we thought that, maybe, we could be misinterpretating the phrase and not getting the syntax...
sometimes, the phrase in Chinese is very extense and, in English and Portuguese, it's very little, and each Chinese syllable means a different word...

for example, in "您住得离这儿远吗？", "儿" ("er") means "son", right? what does "son" have to do with "do you live far away from here"?

would it make sense if we said:

您居住遙遠嗎?
nin juzhu yaoyuan ma?
you live distant?

"do you live distant?"

this is a litteral translation...

another one:

我不这样认为。
wo bu zhe yang ren wei.
我不这样看。
wo bu zhe yang ren wan.

"I don't think so".

what is the decomposition of these phrases? what does each word mean? would it make sense if we wrote "我不相信。" ("yo bu xiangxin")?

EDIT: after some researching and analyzing, we figured out something... we think we decifrated this phrase.
我不这样认为。
wo bu zhe-yang ren-wei.
I don't this-form think.
"I don't think such way / such form / like this / so".

do you get our question?

thank you in advance,

[nyarzduk]

Wow it is quite long but I will try explain some things the best I can ^^

你好!
Chinese:
我想要吃湯。
wo xiang yao chi tang.
I find necessary eat soup.

Portuguese:
eu quero comer sopa.
I want-1st.SG to-eat.INF soup.

"I want to eat soup".

This sentence is wrong, you can either say 我想吃汤 or 我要吃汤 (I write in simplified Chinese ^^)
想 is more "polite" than 要 so the first sentence would be translated by "I would like to eat soup" 要 can also express the future "I'm going to eat soup". In most cases the first sentence is used.

but, now, look at this phrase:

您住得离这儿远吗？
nin zhu de chi zhe er yuan ma?

meaning: "do you live far away from here?"

how is the litteral translation of this phrase? this syntax is strange... what does each syllable mean?

Tansliteration is nin zhu de li....
It is difficult to translate each syllabe.
First in Chinese a syllabe (=a character) does not correspond to a word, although each character has a meaning in itself, character are combined together to form words. For example the character 国 (國 in traditional Chinese) means "country" but the word "country" is 国家, the character 国 used alone in a sentence actually means nothing.
Second some grammar words are what they are, grammar words with no particular meaning...
So in your sentence, we can translate word-to-word by :
you (您）live+[grammar word] （住得）[grammar word expressing distance="from"] （离） here （这儿）far (远） [interrogative particle] 吗

for example, in "您住得离这儿远吗？", "儿" ("er") means "son", right? what does "son" have to do with "do you live far away from here"?

Like I said you must not look at every charcter independantly, but sometimes as part of words : 这儿 (pronounced "zher") means "here". The character 儿 means "son" (but the word for son is 儿子） but here it is just a suffix used by northern Chinese. An alternative is 这里 (zheli) used in the South.

would it make sense if we said:

您居住遙遠嗎?
nin juzhu yaoyuan ma?
you live distant?

"do you live distant?"

this is a litteral translation...

I never heard it, which doesn't mean it is incorrect If it is correct it is not the most common way to say it ^^

another one:

我不这样认为。
wo bu zhe yang ren wei.
我不这样看。
wo bu zhe yang ren wan.

"I don't think so".

what is the decomposition of these phrases? what does each word mean? would it make sense if we wrote "我不相信。" ("yo bu xiangxin")?

I （我）[negation] （不）this way （这样）think (认为）

我不相信 means "I don't trust this"

Hope this helps

[pc2]

謝謝﹗ xiexie.
this was very helpful.
if you don't mind, we have one more question:

would it make sense to say:
您住得离这儿远吗？
nin zhu de li zhe er yuan ma?

您住离这儿远吗？
nin zhu li zhe er yuan ma?

bacause this 得 ("de") is very strange... we think the most of the problems we have with Chinese is this particle.

salutations,

[nyarzduk]

Yes the particle can be omitted in this case ^^ 得 is not easy to explain, it is used to "qualify" the verb it follows, once you get used to it you can use it naturally

[try again]

yes.u mentioned about the sequence of our language.
in fact,that become one of the biggest confusings n trouble for our chinese student to learn english,coz the sequence of english and chinese words in a sentense is constructed diffrently.

but we can also joke about that sometimes.
like,in english,when we ask sb's age, we could say: how old are you

and if we directly translate into chinese,u'll see:
怎么老是你 however this sentense in english means: why you again!! /why always you!
(some kinda annoyed)

actually in the correct chinese it goes:你多少岁了？
but it also depends on who u are asking,
for a child :
for an old man/woman: 您贵庚？
if u say “你几岁了？”to an old man/woman, that would be rude and ppl would laugh at u.