Is this sentence natural/good Chinese?

[anonymoose]

Found the following sentence here:

 

起初老师在台上讲什么我都听不懂，在背景不足，概念尚未形成之前，甚至连发问都不知道要问什么，后来，我耐心听同学怎么问问题，耐心听老师怎么回答问题，就在这过程中，锲而不舍地一个片段 、一个片段，一点一点的累积知识，才开始有概念产生。

 

I think it's not written well because the author writes 在背景不足 and then I expect something to happen, and then we get to 后来, and I'm thinking after what? I think it would make more sense if the 后来 were omitted. Then it would be more like 在背景不足，(概念尚未形成之前，甚至连发问都不知道要问什么，)我耐心听同学怎么问问题, then we can see that 耐心听 is 在背景不足的条件下.

 

Any comments? Can the original sentence be considered correct Chinese?

[ZhangJiang]

I think it's just bad punctuation. Consider 在背景不足、概念尚未形成之前

[skylee]

A person describing himself/herself 鍥而不捨, hmm…

[anonymoose]

A person describing himself/herself 鍥而不捨, hmm…

 

What's wrong with that?

[skylee]

Nothing is wrong. That is a positive quality. IMHO it just does not sound right for a person to flatter him/herself.

[陳德聰]

I think it's a little bit weird to describe what the person is doing as "锲而不舍" as if listening in class is really so difficult.

[Cici Burger]

For me here you use 锲而不舍 is very good. I just think you missed some words, like 我， there is no subject in this sentence, the red words are which i added.

 

起初老师在台上讲什么我都听不懂，在背景不足，概念尚未形成之前，我甚至连发问都不知道要问什么，后来，我耐心听同学怎么问问题，耐心听老师怎么回答问题，就在这个过程中，我锲而不舍地一个片段 、一个片段，一点一点的累积知识，才开始有概念产生。

[Liu Yi]

Hi, I'd like to answer your questions. Because Chinese has a very loose sentence structure, many sentence elements are usually omitted and the use of punctuation is not very proper. We don't really care about these details. If you add the missing parts and the correct punction to this sentence, it would be like this:

起初老师在台上讲什么我都听不懂。在背景不足，概念尚未形成之前，我甚至连发问都不知道要问什么。后来，我耐心听同学怎么问问题，耐心听老师怎么回答问题。就在这过程中，我锲而不舍地一个片段 、一个片段，一点一点的累积知识，才开始有概念产生。

1.Just like English, Chinese sentences also have to be cut into sense-groups to help you understand. In this sentence, "在背景不足" is not a sense-group but with "概念尚未形成之前" together. The author didn't know what to ask under the condition of "在背景不足，概念尚未形成之前".(“在。。。之前” should be understood together)

2."后来" corresponds to "起初", and it simply means "after a period of time" or "later on".

3."锲而不舍" is usually used to describe others' good quality of never giving up, but occasionally to describe oneself is no big deal.

    So the original sentence can be considered correct Chinese because it's written by a Chinese people LOL. I'm Chinese so I can be more sensitive to what the author wants to express. But I'm often confused about some English sentences as well. I'm studying English hard and please point out my mistake.  I wish my answer would help.

[anonymoose]

Thanks, yes. It was just the punctuation that threw me off initially, but now it is obvious.

 

because it's written by a Chinese people

 

Should be "a Chinese person".
 

I'm studying English hard and please point out my mistake.

 

I'm studying English hard. Please point out my mistakes. 如果说mistake，含义是你知道只有一个错误，否则一般用复数形式。

 

I wish my answer would help.

 

应该说"I hope my answer helps." 你的原句的含义是你的答案没有提供帮助，要是能提供帮助该多好！

[Kenny同志]

Because Chinese has a very loose sentence structure, many sentence elements are usually omitted and the use of punctuation is not very proper.

 

I don't agree.

 

a) The Chinese language itself is not loose (just pick up a copy of 聊齋誌異 and you will see how concise the language can be); people write loose sentences.

 

b) "Many sentence elements are usually omitted" is untrue. Things omitted in Chinese sentences are mostly subjects and possessive adjectives, which, when added, often make the sentence long and clunky, with no increased clarity.

 

c) Even veteran writers have difficulty using punctuation marks, especially full stops, correctly. Regarding this, you can refer to 繆哲's 禍棗集 (page 46). The current system of Chinese punctuation marks is simply not well designed for the language.

[echoinvally]

this is a real and good Chinese sentence!

[echoinvally]

这是写得很好的一段中文句子

可是却被如此这般的一番分析.......

真是，无语了