Lesson 3.1 Catching A Ride

This is a small point but one that bugs me every now and then. Consider this sentence: Hěn yǒumíng。 很有名。 It's very famous. My understanding that that you do not use 是 (shì) before adjectives but instead use 很 (hěn). In the context of this sentence, 很 (hěn) is being used in place of 是 (shì)．So, the proper English translation of the Chinese is simply "It's famous." To say it's very famous, Google Translate suggests 这是非常有名的. Zhè shì fēicháng yǒumíng de. Any comments?

Robert 你好！ You are correct in your assumption however, 很 is not a direct equivalent for the word 'is' and does include the qualification of intensifying the adjective. Therefore, including the word 'very' in the English translation is perfectly acceptable and would indeed be expected if you were to undertake any professional translating. I hope this has cleared this up for you and keep up the good work! - Lin Ping

Note that the subject (it) in 很有名 (Hěn yǒumíng) is omitted from the sentence. It seems there is no way to say "It's famous" versus "It's very famous". I know that one basic rule is never to use 是 (shì ) before adjectives so 它是很有名 (tā shì hěn yǒumíng) is incorrect (and very much so).

if you want to use 是 I。这是现在非常有名的。（是＋time） II。这个是一个非常有名的... （是＋Measure word） III。这是我国非常有名的... （是＋place）