How to say "emphasize" in Chinese?

[NinjaTurtle]

I'm having trouble translating the word "emphasize" into Chinese. (The Chinese people I talk to do not seem to understand the literal translation of "emphasize" into Chinese.)

 

In English we can say:

 

"I don't have money."

"I don't have any money."

 

The second sentence emphasizes the idea of a lack of money.

 

What's the best way to say "A emphasizes B" in Chinese? I am also told Chinese people do not say something like, "我都也没有钱。", they just say, "我没有钱。"

 

Or would it be better to say something like, "A has a stronger meaning than B"?

 

[889]

我一块钱也没有。

[pon00050]

我确实一分钱都没有。 is how I would say it.

 

EDITED: To clarify, the way I understood was that OP was looking for ways to emphasize what he wants to say and by providing the above example, I meant to suggest that one can add "确实", which will deliver the tone of emphasis, to his sentence.

Edited May 6, 2018 at 02:10 PM by pon00050
For clarification

[Flickserve]

I don't think those two answers are quite what the OP has in mind.

[889]

冇钱！

 

Or are we talking about conversational Chinese? In which case you can use stress, much as in English:

我没有钱！

Of course if you're at a restaurant with friends and the bill comes, you might say:

我没有钱！

 

[Flickserve]

1 hour ago, 889 said:

Or are we talking about conversational Chinese?

 

I don't see the answer to the original question. @889, maybe I am interpreting the question differently to you...  See below...

 

4 hours ago, NinjaTurtle said:

I'm having trouble translating the word "emphasize" into Chinese.

 

[ChTTay]

Think the question is a bit mixed up. 

 

Seems like the OP wants a word for emphasise AND how to emphasize. 

 

As for an answer, depends on what you’re saying. I don’t think there is a general way... but the OP’s example in English also isn’t general. 

 

 The above suggestion by 889 about money 我一块钱也没有 is what I’d go with to fit the “I don’t have any money”.

 

I find people use 就 a lot for emphasis. Not sure that’s grammatically right but it feel that way to me in Beijing. For instance, If they strongly agree/disagree they might say 就是 or 就不是！You hear things like 就不是我的意思！你就是那么笨！

[tooironic]

The word "emphasize" in Chinese is 强调 qiángdiào.

 

I don't have money. 我没有钱 wǒ méiyǒu qián.

 

I don't have any money. 我一分钱都没有 wǒ yī fēn qián dōu méiyǒu. Or you could consider the chengyu 不名一文 
bù míng yīwén in a more formal context.

 

Another common expression is 手头拮据 shǒutóu jiéjū - i.e. to be broke, or to feel the pinch.

 

Hope that helps.

[NinjaTurtle]

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay, but I had to reformat my hard drive.

 

I want to thank everyone for their responses. This is very helpful.

 

Tooironic, I did use the word 强调. But every time I tried to use it in a sentence, Chinese people just stared at me.

 

So, how do we say in Chinese:

 

The phrase “not any” emphasizes the idea of “no money”.

 

[Jim]

You could use 突出 -  something along the lines of "用not any这个说法突出了一分钱没有的概念"

[NinjaTurtle]

Thanks, Jim!

[imron]

10 hours ago, NinjaTurtle said:

But every time I tried to use it in a sentence, Chinese people just stared at me.

How exactly were you trying to use it in a sentence?  I would have though 强调 fits the bill here also if you are using it in the context of presenting two phrases and explaining the difference in emphasis between them.

 

[Beelzebro]

There's also 着重 but I don't really know how to use that word myself so I won't attempt to explain it or how it's different from 强调.

 

To answer your question of how to say "A emphasises B", I'd suggest something like:

 

说A强调B - A emphasises B  

说A，而不说C，更强调B - saying A instead of C puts more emphasis on B  

第二种说法强调B - the second phrasing emphasises B

[NinjaTurtle]

imron, sorry, I don't remember the exact wording I used in my 强调 sentence.

 

One of the biggest problems I have had in learning Chinese is that the dictionary form of a word is usually NOT what people say in daily conversation. What I have done many times is look for a word in the dictionary, then show it to my Chinese students, then ask them what they actually say in daily conversation. This is a VERY difficult and time-consuming method, but it is the only one I have found that works. And it works quite well. (Another problem is, when I look an English word up in a dictionary, it will give me ten different Chinese words, and I have no idea which word is the right word. This is where I must again check with my students.)

 

BE, thanks for those translations!