As distinct from the HSK listening exercises, in the reading comprehension section you'll have both questions and answers literally right in front of you. The challenge is to pick the option with the same meaning as the word or phrase selected from the sentence given. This measures not only your range of vocabulary, but also your understanding of contextual nuance and meaning. Good luck!
henning
said on September 24, 2008
This seemed actually easy compared to the other Intermediate stuff. Got 13/15 here. My mistakes: No. 3. I understood the sentence perfectly but none of the choices seemed to fit. 不能够 did not seem synonymous, I would expected 不可以 or 不应该. Among the available options I eventually picked 不随便 - aware that this must be wrong.No. 14. Here I didn't actually understand the sentence: 我好容易才排完了队。 "It was not easy to me to wait in line until the end"?
henning
said on September 24, 2008
OK, just learned that 不能够 also means "be not allowed to do" and 好容易 is also 好不容易. Only Chinese can have negations that mean the same thing as the original. 不+Proposition = Proposition. Very interesting logical algebra here.
Brendan
said on September 24, 2008
henning -- English has the same thing with "could care less" / "couldn't care less," which is something that's always confused me. But yeah - the 好容易/好不容易 thing is pretty sneaky here.
Echo
said on September 24, 2008
@henning,
不能够--simply speaking, means "can't".
@Brendan,
Great explanation of 好容易 and 好不容易. It's a bit tricky in Chinese. Sometimes native speakers can use it correctly just because of 语感.
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
Sean
said on September 26, 2008
More correctly:不能够 = "unable to"
Echo
said on September 26, 2008
@Sean,
thanks:)
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
sprungturnip
said on October 5, 2008
No.6: 禁不住...
忍不住
不得不
无可奈何
What is the difference between these three answers? They all basically mean "can't stop yourself doing" something right?
Echo
said on October 5, 2008
@sprungturnip,
忍不住 means can't help doing something. It always relates to emotions. e.g. 看到他们重逢的场景，在场的人都忍不住流下了眼泪。It has same meaning with 禁不住 in this question. 禁不住 is more like a written word though.
不得不 refers to (something) you don't want to do but you have to.It emphasizes things you are not willing to do, but you must. e.g. 其实我并不想这样对你，但是有些事我不得不做。
无可奈何 's meaning is closer to 不得不， but it doesn't refer to something you have to do. It means you have no choice. The biggest difference between 不得不 and 无可奈何 is that the latter is an adj while the former is an adv. Therefore, we can say things like 这样做我也是无可奈何。
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
Barnaby
said on December 24, 2008
How can you tell which meaning is intended by '好容易' in a particular situation? In spoken language you might be able to tell by tone, body language etc.; but what about written language? Is it usually easy to tell by context, or are there any hints to look out for?
trevelyan
said on December 24, 2008
hi barnaby - the first meaning is "very difficult" as in 我好容易才买到票了. I'm a bit confused what you mean by the second meaning here. Can you give an example?
Echo
said on December 24, 2008
@barnaby.low,
Mostly when you see "好容易", you can replace it with "好不容易", which means very difficult/after many difficulties (I am finally able to do sth.). This is an adverb phrase. Another expression you maybe heard occasionally is to use it as an adjective phrase, although people would rather say "很容易" instead of "好容易".
This phrase always use in oral language.
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
Barnaby
said on December 24, 2008
@trevelyan: according to 'Wenlin', 好容易 can mean both 'with great difficulty' and 'with great ease'. What I meant was if someone says 好容易, how do you know which one they mean?
@Echo: does 很容易 also mean 'very difficult', or 'very easy'?
Brendan
said on December 25, 2008
@barnaby.low - Echo is the native speaker, not me, but off the top of my head: sentences with the form "好容易 (才) + verb phrase" are expressing difficulty, whereas sentences of the form "(subject) + 好容易" describe ease. That is, when 好容易 is in the adverbial position, before the verb, it means "hard;" when it's in the adjectival position, after the subject of a sentence, it means "easy."
So you could have one person say 我好容易才记住了这个句式 ("It was totally hard to learn this sentence structure!") and then someone else disagreeing: 记住这个句式好容易啊! ("Learning this sentence structure is totally easy!")
Disclaimer: I'm not a native speaker, so I could be way off on this -- Echo?
trevelyan
said on December 25, 2008
Brendan, I'm not as versed as Echo either, and after digging around on both Google and Baidu, the only thing I'm certain of is that this would make an interesting question for Victor Mair.The dominant and formal usage is definitely "difficult" and that is what the HSK is testing. The adjective/adverb suggestion you and Echo offer for some of the deviations makes sense if you're trying to think about how people think, but also seems like rationalization after the fact since Baidu pulls up a few counter-examples of the phrase in other contexts where it wouldn't seem to me to make sense. Which puts someone somewhere in the uncomfortable situation of seeming to claim that Chinese is not internally consistent.So I'll putt on this question too. I did find it pretty interesting that this document adopts the narrative form in order to make it's explanation seem more authoritative, but ends up invoking an exception for the word too. Only reason I pull it from the fray otherwise is that it's sourced to a Chinese educational institute (www.syxx.fx.edu.sh.cn) and while I don't imagine we can make any assumptions about the quality of the education there, if they're having trouble with it I'd assume any confusion here can be forgiven.
Echo
said on December 25, 2008
@barnaby.low & brendan,
Sorry that my answer before may be not very specific.Brendan already gave us a very good answer though.
There is one important thing I need to point out. The phrase "好容易" have two meanings. One is "difficultly", and this is an "adverb phrase". Another is "very easy", and this is an "adjective phrase". The key point to distinguish this two meanings is to distinguish what part of speech this word is in the sentence.
Taking Brendan's sample sentence as an exmple,
我好容易才记住了这个句式--"好容易"and"才"here are both adverb(phrase)and they work on the verb "记住". In the sentence, 记住这个句式好容易啊--"好容易" is an adjective phrase.
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
Barnaby
said on December 29, 2008
I took a break over Christmas, though I see you guys work Christmas Day! Thanks for the explanations.
murrayjames
said on March 10, 2014
Hi David,This quiz isn't working for me in Chrome. I don't see a red/green flash of color while selecting an answer, and submitting the quiz leads to an error message:Error: The requested address '/lessons/testresults' was not found on this server.
