Expressing "more and more" with "yuelaiyue"
Revision as of 07:56, 8 September 2011 by Gregory.mcandrews (talk | contribs)
"越 ... 越..." (yue ... yue ...) is used frequently in Chinese to express that something is becoming more and more (adjectival verb) over time, with the latter adjectival verb changing with the former. The most common structure is:
Subject + 越来 + 越 + Adjective
This expresses that the subject is becoming more and more adjective as time goes on.
Here are some examples:
- 汽油 越 来 越 贵。
- 美国 的 音乐 越 来 越 流行。
- 她 的 数学 成绩 越 来 越 好。
This structure can be expanded further by replacing 来 with another verb. This expresses that a change causes another change.
Subject + 越 + Verb Phrase + 越 + Adjective
Here are some examples of this structure:
- 他 越 喝 可口可乐 越 胖。
- 她 越 说话 越 舒服。
- 啊，我 越 忙 越 做 错 了。
Sources and further reading
Books
- Common Chinese Patterns 330 (NEEDS AMAZON AFFILIATE LINK)
- Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Reader (NEEDS AMAZON AFFILIATE LINK)
