How to use "最 ... 之一" in the plural, i.e. "2 / 3 / ...of the most"?

[咖乐]

Hi everyone!

 

How would you say "最 。。。之一" in the plural?

 

Eg. 

 

Xiao Wang is one of my best friends  =  小王是我的最好朋友之一

 

Xiao Wang and Old Li are two of my best friends  =  ?

 

How do you, so to speak, use the "最。。。之一" construction for plurals?

 

 

Thanks in advance!

 

/咖乐。

[alantin]

他们两个是我的最好的朋友之二。(?)

[EnergyReaper]

If they are male, I may say 小王和老李是我的两个铁哥们; if not, I may say 小王和老李是我的两个挚友

There is a song called 铁哥们儿.

铁哥们儿 （米卫强演唱的歌曲）

Song link（Maybe the website is blocked in your countries）: 铁哥们儿

 

[Lu]

I think I'd say 小王和老李属于我最好的朋友。‘之二’sounds weird, I don't think I've ever heard or seen that.

[咖乐]

@Lu Thank you for your reply! Yes, 属于 seems to be a good alternative for 之一 when dealing with plurals. Another construction I've come across is using 其中, rephrasing it into something like:

 

我有很多最好朋友(?们)，其中小王和老李是两个。

 

@alantin

Having asked a few native Chinese speakers this (kind of) question, it seems to me that 之一 really is a fixed construction, i.e. not something that you can generalise into eg. "(?)之二". (They generally seem to get confused, and to not "be able" to understand the question, which at least to me suggests that they don't think about 之一 as something "generalisable").

 

@EnergyReaper

Thank you for your suggestions! I will look up the song! ??

 

 

 

 

[889]

Likewise, 之二 in that context sounds weird to me. But I think I might say 这两位是我最好的朋友之一。

 

Think of it as "couple," "trio" etc if that helps. Normally singular in English.

[TheBigZaboon]

I've said this on here before, and got a ration of boo-hee for it from a former moderator, but I think you're making a serious mistake by even thinking about translating characteristic English sentence patterns into Chinese. You risk speaking what both Mao and Zhou En Lai used to call "Chinese with English characteristics."

 

If you're using a textbook, you should be trying to adapt your English to the patterns in your lessons, not the other way around. It may initially lead to learning how to considerably simplify what you want to say to its essentials, but I've found that it's worth it. If you are too advanced for my preaching, I apologize, but it's a serious problem that seems to be much the rage nowadays in professional discussions among Chinese who teach English speakers. I'm a firm believer in teaching grammar as patterns, rather than grammar as rules. That way of thinking about language acquisition leads to lots of "drill and kill," which is not popular in today's language-teaching world.

 

I think it would be good to look at the response above from a native Chinese speaker that doesn't use the phrase you initially asked about at all, in a response that I found really interesting.

 

I just received a copy of a book published only last week about this very problem: the influence of native language (in this case, English) on the acquisition of Chinese. The book is very detailed , and begins with a discussion about the use and misuse of patterns as basic as 因为..., 所以... However, I was unpleasantly surprised that there are lots of misspellings and missing words in the English in the book, so I will have to give the Chinese a good look-over before I give out the title, the author's name, and the publisher's name.

 

Sorry if I sound preachy, but others have made this point before, maybe better.

 

TBZ

 

 

[咖乐]

Just now I stumbled across two more alternatives:

 

a) 小王和老李，是最好的朋友中的两个

 

b) 我最好的朋友里，有小王和老李

 

To my 老外 ears, they both sound familiar, especially (a).

 

@TheBigZaboon I see what you're saying, and although I would agree that it is wise to remember that, generally speaking, languages don't relate to one another in a 1:1 fashion, it's really not a question of "either or". Rather, learning a language is a process in which literal translations definitely have a role to play.

[TheBigZaboon]

I agree wholeheartedly that languages don't relate to one another in a 1:1 fashion. However, after acknowledging that, I have to say that in the four languages I've used for many years in my life to live in someone else's country or do business with a company in someone else's country, literal translations have played only a minor role in communication. Literal translations are overwhelmingly used not to communicate, but to clear up failures to communicate in the use of one or both languages. Scientific translations and massive and bitter contract disputes are two of the most common situations that come to mind.

 

I have no right to preach to you about language learning, as you are obviously not a beginner.  I have to acknowledge that your experience may be different, and I have no way to know anything about you. My overly preachy advice was for those just starting out. I apologize if I have offended you.  But in my experience, literal translation has provided both side-splitting and pants-wetting moments of humor, and dangerous misunderstandings nearly leading to violence.

 

I sincerely apologize if I appeared to be condescending or preachy.

 

TBZ

[alantin]

On 2/21/2022 at 12:21 PM, 咖乐 said:

@alantin

Having asked a few native Chinese speakers this (kind of) question, it seems to me that 之一 really is a fixed construction, i.e. not something that you can generalise into eg. "(?)之二". (They generally seem to get confused, and to not "be able" to understand the question, which at least to me suggests that they don't think about 之一 as something "generalisable").

Good to know! I had a session with a tutor today and wanted to ask her about this, but I forgot.

My first instinct for saying this was something along the lines of "他们是我的两个最好的朋友“, but the nuance is a bit different and I got the impression that requirement was to get a literal translation that used 之一 or at least as similar a construct as possible.

I'd say that literal translation definitely does have it's place. If you're writing instructions for someone for example, or preparing a contract, you want to be very specific. But in any casual conversation I think there may not be any practical difference between saying "they are two of my best friends" or "they are my two best friends".

 

Though I talked with a tutor about this once and she said that nothing really kills a complement like 之一 right after it. ?
You are the best teacher I've ever had! One of them at least..."

So I personally try to be a bit careful where I use 之一.

Sounds to me a bit similar to the immortal wisdom of good old Ned Stark "Everything before the word "but" is horse sh*t."

[becky82]

On 2/21/2022 at 6:21 PM, 咖乐 said:

i.e. not something that you can generalise into eg. "(?)之二".

 

I asked my teacher about this, and she said this use of 之二 is flat-out wrong.  But you can use it mathematically 三分之二 = 2/3.  She said e.g. 西施和杨贵妃都是四大美女 is okay.  For the friends sentence, one option is finding a workaround, such as 小王和老李都是好朋友 or 他们是我的两个最好的朋友.

 

Whether or not 最……之一 is considered a grammar error (via contradiction) is the source of a lot of debate, but the Chinese Grammar Wiki seems to accept it, giving the example 她是我最好的朋友之一。  However, 钟大夫的卫生室是镇里最正规的之一 is considered ungrammatical in the Standard Course HSK6上 Workbook p.157.

[laowai-guide]

On 2/21/2022 at 7:21 PM, becky82 said:

Whether or not 最……之一 is considered a grammar error (via contradiction) is the source of a lot of debate, but the Chinese Grammar Wiki seems to accept it, giving the example 她是我最好的朋友之一

Interesting to see that there's debate around it! I wanted to pitch in and say that I once directly asked a laoshi how to say that someone was one of my best friends, and they good-naturedly laughed at me. They said that if I was using "best," then I could only ever be referring to one thing. It also looks like that's one of the points brought up in the debate that you linked to, so it looks like others share that opinion!

 

I'm guessing this is just one of those instances where, as a non-native speaker, you should stick to using less controversial grammar points. (I mean this politely!)

[Lu]

On 2/21/2022 at 10:55 PM, alantin said:

Though I talked with a tutor about this once and she said that nothing really kills a compliment like 之一 right after it. ?
You are the best teacher I've ever had! One of them at least..."

The cool thing is that 之一 can be used to emphasize the compliment as well: 这是北京最好的啤酒，没有之一。I've heard this construction in the wild and really liked it.

[Publius]

On 2/22/2022 at 4:22 PM, Lu said:

最好的啤酒，没有之一

Yup, that turn of phrase is quite recent. Can tell which year but definitely no earlier than 2005.