Mandarin · Chapter 14 · Lesson 7 · Grammar primer

Intensified adjectives

Grammar for HSK 3.

The short version

得多 (de duō) only works inside a comparison

得多 (dé duō) means 'by a lot', and it attaches after the adjective in a 比 (bǐ) comparison to say the gap is large: 高得多 (gāo de duō) is 'much taller'. It cannot stand alone - without a stated or clearly implied comparison, Mandarin has nothing for 得多 (dé duō) to measure the difference against.

他比我高得多。 Tā bǐ wǒ gāo de duō.

He is much taller than me.

极了 (jí le) never stacks with 很 (hěn)

好极了 (hǎo jí le) means 'excellent' with nothing to compare it to - 极了 (jí le) pushes an adjective straight to its highest pitch. Because it is already an extreme, adding 很 (hěn) in front is redundant: 很好极了 (hěn hǎo jí le) is not something a native speaker would say.

这个消息好极了! Zhège xiāoxi hǎo jí le!

This news is excellent!

That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.

Read the full article · 6 min read

Practice

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10-question session

One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 24 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.

Lesson 7 of 14 in this chapter

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