Using 越来越 and 了

[youreskimofriend]

Me again...

I have this sentence here: 年轻人越来越会打扮了 and first I am wondering if it is correct to translate it like this: "young people are more and more able to dress up (会 as "can"?)

Mostly though I wanted to ask you guys why in this case there is a 了 here but not in most of these 越来越 sentences. I mean, here the 了 indicates a change of situation, right? Don't all of these 越来越 sentences show a change of situation? Or is it more or less up to me to decide if I wanna emphasize? Could I leave out the 了in this sentence?

thankyouthankyouthankyou

[imron]

first I am wondering if it is correct to translate it like this

If you were to ask a native English speaker who had never learnt any Chinese what they thought of the sentence "young people are more and more able to dress up", do you think they would think it sounds natural and that it conveys the same meaning as the original?

[anonymoose]

了 here does not really convey a specific meaning. I would say not including 了 gives the sentence more of an objective and descriptive feel, whereas inclusion of 了 gives it more of a subjective and commentative feel.

However, I'm not a native speaker, and the nuances of 了 is one of the most challenging parts of learning Chinese.

[semantic nuance]

About the usage of 了, there're a lot of threads discussed here. Have you ever searched here beforehand? Here's one: Grammar #4: 了

[youreskimofriend]

@imron: I honestly don't know if it sounds natural since I don't even know if it is translated correctly (hui = able to?). Also, I am not a native English speaker.

@anonymoose: thanks that was helpful

@semantic nuance: yes, I know, I did not ask for help with 了 in general. I was only wondering if there is a reason for pairing 越来越 and 了 or not.

[imron]

'会' can mean 'able to', and 打扮 can mean 'dress up', but 'able to dress up' sounds a little strange in this context, and that a group of people are more and more able to dress up seems even more strange (to me it sounds more like they're good at going to costume parties). This is the danger I mentioned in the other post about translating word by word - it often doesn't come across as natural in the target language.

A better way to phrase it might be something like:

Young people are paying more and more attention to the way they dress.

or

Young people are paying more and more attention to their appearance.

or

Young people are getting better and better at dressing to impress.

and so on.

Depending on surrounding context, I might also add 'These days,' to the beginning of those sentences but I'd also want to see more surrounding context because that context would influence the translation I chose, for example, the above translations, while basically the same, have slightly different meanings/emphasis and so I would want to choose the one that more closely fits with the meaning the source text was trying to convey.

[HusbandOfWuhan]

I would say the ...越来越会打扮了 here is conveying

“becoming more sophisticated in the way they dress nowadays”。

I would say here that the meaning of 了 is included in the structure "...are becoming........ nowadays."

[imron]

I like the above translation, and once again it underscores how a translation that isn't a word for word copy of the original works out much better.

[youreskimofriend]

Thanks for all the good advice, however for the exam I think I will stick with a more word-by-word translation - just to be safe

[imron]

just to be safe

If the course has decent teachers and a decent exam, you may find you end up with a lower mark because of it.

[Tiana]

I agree with both post #9 and #10: go beyond word-for-word translation when you know exactly what the phrase/ sentence means, but stick to the literal approach if you're only half-sure what it means. To translate freely without being sure of the meaning can appear as if you're waffling