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.
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!
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.
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Lesson 7 of 14 in this chapter