Expressing "a full" with "zuzu"

Revision as of 08:02, 8 April 2013 by Guomubai (talk | contribs)
Chinese-grammar-wiki-足足.jpg

Sometimes in English, we may want to emphasize how big, small, long, etc. something is percieved to be. We have all heard expressions like "he was a full 300 lbs.", or "he was all seven feet tall." The "a full" and "all" in these sentences have an equivalent expression in Chinese: 足足.

Structure

All you have to do is put 足足 either in front or after the verb. Remember that 足足 adds emphasis to what you are saying, so you should always use it with a number. Some more commonly used verbs are 有 and 等.This grammar structure is similar to

足足 + Verb

Verb + 足足

Examples

  • 姚明 身高 足足 有 2.26米。
  • 昨天 我的 约会 不 太 好,她 让 我 等 足足 两 个 小时。
  • 怪不得 他 说 汉语 说 得 那么 好,他 住在 中国 足足 十 年 的 时间!

Sources and further reading

Books

HSK6