果不其然

[xuechengfeng]

What do this mean.......?

[studentyoung]

“果不其然”means "as expected".

我猜下午要下雨，果不其然，下了。

I predicted that it would rain this afternoon.As epected, it rained.

[eddiewouldgo]

果不其然 = as expected = 果然

[Ascendancy9]

果不其然

Is the third character "zhen/really"?

[fenlan]

No, the third character is qi2, an ancient Chinese character normally meaning "its" or something like that. guo3buqi2ran2 can also be expressed as: guo3ran2

[gato]

Here's a question for you Chinese experts:

果不然 = sure enough

果然 = as expected

Why? And is 果不其然 the same as 果不然?

[fenlan]

果不然 means the same as 果不其然 and these both mean something very similar to 果然. The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary shows the first two mean "just as expected" and the last "as expected". The extra "just" in the first translation might indicate a slightly more emphatic tone? It is odd that a phrase and a negative version of the same phrase mean the same thing, but 好容易 and 好不容易 both mean "with great difficulty".

[gato]

Hmm, I've never heard anyone use 好容易 to mean "with great difficulty", though John DeFrancis's ABC Dictionary does say that it could either mean "with great difficulty" or "very easy." I've only heard it to mean the latter.

果不其然 is a phrase from classical Chinese. 其 has a meaning of "that/such" and 然 “consequently." It seems that it could be translated literally into modern vernacular Chinese as 结果不就这样 ("isn't it like this then"), which is close in meaning to "as expected." That's one possible reason for the presence of the negative 不.

[eddiewouldgo]

排了两小时队，好容易才买到了票。

排了两小时队，好不容易才买到了票。

Both means 'with great effort'

排了五分钟队，好容易就买到了票。

This can only mean 'with ease', unless you think 5 minutes is too much.