how to use 援助

[rezaf]

There is an example in a book I'm reading for 援助 but I think it's not correct. 地震发生后，全国人民都援助了钱和衣服。 What do you think about the object?

[skylee]

I agree. I think the object should be the recipients of the assistance, e.g. 災民 or 災區.

援助 is also very often used as a noun.

[Daan]

The official HSK usage dictionary agrees, of course, with skylee.

[rezaf]

thanks, It's an HSK vocabulary book from 北京语言大学出版社. There are many mistakes in this book but I couldn't find any other vocabulary book.

[affix]

The sentence sounds perfectly fine to me.

It is very acceptable to native speakers if no ambiguity is introduced.

Consider the following similar usage of verb "喂" feed.

“小狗又饥又渴，所以我喂了它些水和狗粮” => “小狗又饥又渴，所以我喂了些水和狗粮。”

and another example

“我欠了别人好多债。” => “我欠了好多债。”

[rezaf]

地震发生后，全国人民都援助了(灾民)钱和衣服。 有道理

[HashiriKata]

援助 is also very often used as a noun.

I think it normally sounds better as a noun. For this reason, one may find more examples of this word as a noun than as a verb.

[xiaocai]

It is very acceptable to native speakers if no ambiguity is introduced.

I don't know which demographic of native speakers you are representing here but certainly not me. And I think it is indeed used more often as a noun in Mainland China especially in compound words such as 法律援助 or 经济援助, etc.

[chrix]

rezaf, which book are you using. The same sentence is in my HSK vocabulary book (HSK词汇精解) as well, but it's published by 华夏出版社. Would you mind pointing out some other mistakes, if they use the same source, or are indeed the same books, I would want to be more careful...

I had a look at news.google.com, and the overwhelming cases of 援助 seem indeed to be uses as nouns. But there are some very few cases where it is used as a verb and in a subset of those even without the recipient of the aid construed as an object:

自家是贫困户，国家给了2万元的灾后重建资金；上海援助了1.8万元的建房资金；按照政府出台的宅基地流转增减挂钩政策，家里得到了6万元的补助。

吴妙发：美国这次动静非常大，一是援助了 1亿美元，二是援助了很多物资，派了 5000人到海地，还有一艘航空母舰停在海地。

I looked at 200 occurrences of "援助了", and found only these two cases, but as it's used by journalists, it's good enough for me..

[rezaf]

I'm using 《HSK 词汇讲练》. Maybe both books have used HSK exams as their source. In that case we might coclude that those exams have had some small mistakes. The other mistakes that I have found in the book are related to the words they have used as 反义词. I'm not learning this book for the sake of the exam that's why I want to learn the most common way of using these words in Chinese.

[chrix]

well, since you didn't give any other examples, I'm not sure if we can conclude that. The usage you called into question seems to be valid, after all.

[rezaf]

That conclusion was only about 援助 based on what some native speakers have said about that sentence being not 顺利. Today I asked quite a few native speakers, 3 of them said the sentence was fine and two of them said that it wasn't. They told me that it was correct but a little bit awkward, For the part that I said "full of mistakes" I didn't necessarily mean big technical mistakes but merely not being the most suitable example to put in that book. Some of the words have two functions for example as a verb and as an adjective, but the book only provides two examples for the word being used as an adjective and then gives the 反义词 for the word being used as a verb. for example 稳定 and 波动。Anyway it's a good book, at least the best I could find but it's limited to HSK and it limits the examples that the authors can use. Since I'm not studying for the exam I wish I could find a vocabulary book with better examples.

[chrix]

I don't know if we have the same book, but the one I have is good enough, you can use it for general study purposes, not necessarily just for the HSK. I find the examples ok, but sometimes a bit stale. I'm not sure if you can get any better vocabulary textbooks, as most people don't use them (that's my impression anyway), I guess for English people would resort to the OED, so maybe try a good Chinese dictionary

If you need better examples used naturally, I suggest Google News or somesuch.

[Inkfish]

全国人民都援助了钱和衣服。

maybe this sentence is techically ok, but it sounds a bit weird to me.

i think 捐助 is better here.

[creamyhorror]

I found this in the Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese:

"...軍事援助在內，從這個觀點來看，日本援助的金額可以說是跟美國有等量齊觀的..."

Is 日本援助 a noun, or is 援助 a verb? (I feel that the interpretation of 金額 will affect this...)

[chrix]

could you give us the entire context, please?

[creamyhorror]

The corpus search engine doesn't supply any more than that, though I haven't really looked.

[chrix]

Well, I have a feeling that without the context it will be hard to determine if this is meant as a noun or a verb....

[lacrimosa1983]

援助:support, help, subsidize

don't use this word to a girl, for example, 我想援助她, it means I want to pay her to have sex with her

[creamyhorror]

don't use this word to a girl, for example, 我想援助她, it means I want to pay her to have sex with her

Is that usage an original Chinese usage, or was it imported from Japan? (Since 援助交際 is the common term for 'compensated dating' there.)