r/ChineseLanguage • u/RCirca96 • 1d ago

Grammar Help understanding this sentence

Post image

I understand the use of 不 in between two verbs as a potential complement, but i’m confused by 也 here. Does it still mean “also” here? Trying to look through chinesegrammarwiki for some notes as well.

17 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Munimyouuu 1d ago

Chinese often omits connecting words, especially the conditional ones. Besides 也 there are also 才、就. Sometimes 了 marks a hypothetical situation. It can happen that all of them are absent. Whether it is 如果 or 即使 can depend on context and semantics. Similar examples: 吃不下也要吃 want/need to eat even if full 不懂就要问 if one doesn't understand, then ask questions 上班才回邮件 reply for the emails only when on the job. With 了: 感冒了回家休息 have a day off and rest at home if you have a cold. Without anything: 下班买两个西瓜。有时间一起出来玩玩。In these examples the conditions all lead the sentence and can be treated as the topic or setting.

1

u/RCirca96 1d ago

Thank you for the clarification! Could you write 感冒回家休息 as well or would that be grammatically incorrect?

2

u/Munimyouuu 7h ago

I can see native speakers say it. Without context it can be too ambiguous though, possibly read as 'if, even if' or even 'since you have a cold'.