Expressing "nothing is more...than" with "moguoyu"

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莫过于 can be easily understood as "cannot surpass". It is usually used in literary and formal Chinese to give emphasis to something, emphases that something is the "best" or "worse" or pretty much any other adjective. It is similar to how in English we might say "Nothing is more delicious, not even the world's best restaurants, than my mother's cooking."

Structure

In this structure, you first state the thing that is "best" or "worst", and then state the thing that suppasses it after the 莫过于.莫过于 is one of the phrases that comes from 文言文 Chinese. The 莫 means "not" or "nobody", and the 过于 means "surpass".


Object 1 + 莫过于 + Object 2

Examples

  • 美国 最 好 的 大学 莫过于 英国 的 牛津大学。
  • 天下 最 悲伤 的 事情 莫过于 失去 你 最 爱 的 人。
  • 任何 成功 莫过于 幸福 的 家庭。

Sources and further reading

Books

NEEDS SOURCES

HSK6