"Happy to help", "happy to [blank]"

[Yadang]

Hey,

 

I'm speaking to a friend and wanting to know how to say I'm happy to help them with their English if they ever have any questions or anything. But this brings me to wonder - what about other things that you could be "happy" about? I suspect there must be some variation between, say, "happy to help" and "happy to pay", but perhaps I'm wrong. Also, and perhaps even more importantly, if it is possible to say these things, would an actual Chinese speaker say them, and when? If not, what would they say and when? I'll list some sentences below to get things going, but I'm just looking for a few examples of different uses, nothing in particular other than the first one, so feel free to come up with different ones!

I'm happy to help you anytime!

If you ever need help with your English, I'm happy to help.

I'm happy to pay, if you do your job well.

I'd be happy to come to your party!

I'm sorry, today I'm busy. But I'd be happy to drink tea with you tomorrow.

 

One thing I'm assuming is that all of these would be said differently than "helping you makes me happy" or something like that, otherwise I'd just say "幫你讓我很開心" right? Or wrong? Sorry, my grammar is really quite bad. If that is right, I think that has a different "feel" than I'm trying to give. It's just like the difference between the English "I'm happy to help" and "helping you makes me happy" - they have different feels to them, I think... Or is that just me?

Thanks!

[skylee]

Consider 我很樂意 …  or just tell them to "找我“ if they need any help from you. 

[Nathan Mao]

You can use 巴不得.

As in, 我巴不得帮助提高了你英文水平。

or 我巴不得帮助你练习英文。

 

If they say anything like "不要麻烦你“, you can say, "no, I'm quite willing to do it!"  ”不是，我心甘情愿！“ （this is a little more formal, which is why I think you would only use it in the polite denials/insistence phase of the conversation)

 

I think "I'm happy to pay, if you do your job well." wouldn't go over well, but I think it doesn't go over very well in English, so take my opinion for what it is worth.

In my experience, Chinese people are very sensitive to manipulation and being used, and so if you want to make someone work without a solid agreement on compensation, what's to stop someone from taking all the benefit and then saying "I was willing to pay if you did your job well, but in my opinion you didn't, so you get nothing!"...?

 

I think in this case, I think your sense is correct, in that "I'd be happy to help" and "helping you makes me happy" are two different concepts. 

[skylee]

Re #3, I am not sure if 巴不得 and 心甘情願 are ok. They sound strong and dramatic, and the former may sound sarcastic. But perhaps it is just me. Perhaps many people I don't know talk like that.

[abcdefg]

Agree with Skylee in #2. This is something I often say here and 很乐意 always gets the job done without confusion or puzzlement. 

[Mindmaxd]

我很乐意/高兴 为+somebody do something。

[Yadang]

Excellent, thanks everyone! For some reason, searching for "willing to do something" instead of "happy to do something" didn't even occur to me!

Also, about the "I'm happy to pay, if you do your job well.", yeah - actually I'd never actually say that, in English or Chinese, I was just trying to brainstorm ways to use "happy to..." - but it's a good point. I should ask about example sentences that I will actually use!

Thanks again!

[abcdefg]

For some reason, searching for "willing to do something" instead of "happy to do something" didn't even occur to me!

Those two are different things.

 

Willing to (do something) = 愿意

Happy to (do something) = 乐意

 

You can be grudgingly willing to do something that you don't want to do.

[Yadang]

 

Those two are different things.

 

Willing to (do something) = 愿意

Happy to (do something) = 乐意

 

You can be grudgingly willing to do something.

 

That's a really good point - thanks!