| Change log entry 97275 | |
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| Processed by: | richwarm (2026-08-23 20:31:39 UTC) |
| Comment: |
<< review queue entry 88584 - submitted by 'becky82' >> It looks like the Chinese also functions as an adjective (unlike the English): - 玩摄影的人都知道，这个爱好很花钱。 https://www.chinanews.com.cn/cul/2010/08-11/2460213.shtml - 原本生孩子就挺花钱的，…… https://tidenews.com.cn/news.html?id=3012791 - 上班其实是一个很花钱的事。 https://finance.sina.com.cn/wm/2026-03-20/doc-inhrrrex6831816.shtml?froms=ggmp - 大家都知道备考过程很辛苦也很花钱，…… https://yz.chsi.com.cn/kyzx/jyxd/200610/20061018/631424.html ------------------------- Editor: I'm not sure this requires an adjectival sense of 花钱. Yuen Ren Chao writes in his landmark "A Grammar of Spoken Chinese" (p.69) that "The grammatical meaning of subject and predicate in a Chinese sentence is topic and comment rather than actor and action." As an example, he discusses 这件事早发表了, for which he gives the idiomatic translation "This matter has long been published", but which he also gives a "closer structural translation" of: "(As for) this matter, (one) has long published (it)." 这个爱好很花钱 seems comparable. The hobby itself doesn't literally "spend money"; it is what the sentence is about. We could similarly paraphrase it as "(As for) this hobby, (one) spends a lot of money (on it)." English naturally recasts that as "this hobby is expensive/costly", but that doesn't necessarily make 花钱 adjectival in Chinese. I couldn't find any dictionary that gives an adjectival sense such as "expensive" or 贵 for 花钱. I think dictionaries expect users to understand this sort of topic-comment construction without it being explicitly accounted for in the definition of 花钱. |
| Diff: |
# - 花錢 花钱 [hua1 qian2] /to spend money/ # + 花錢 花钱 [[hua1qian2]] /to spend money/costly; expensive/ |