View Single Post
  #2 (permalink)  
Old 16-Oct-2006, 20:42
MikeNewYork's Avatar
MikeNewYork MikeNewYork is offline
VIP Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2002
Country: USA
Posts: 6,094
Current Location: New York
First Language: American English
Member Type: Academic
Thanks: 0
Thanked 9 Times in 9 Posts
MikeNewYork is an unknown quantity at this point
Default Re: Grammar problem, help me!

Quote:
Originally Posted by sallyhoudongmei View Post
In a grammar book written by a Chinese professor BoBing, I saw two sentences:
This room is three times as large as that one.(1)
This room is three times larger than that one.(2)
The chinese translation of the two sentences are the same in that book, but I can't understand. I think sentence (2) equals: "This room is four times as large as that one.
Help me out, thank you.
This subject comes up periodically. Even NES are confused by the two statements.

Everybody agrees that "three times as large as X" means [3 times X].

Technically, three times larger than X means [3 times X plus X] or [4 times X].

But the second is used incorrectly at least as often as it used correctly.
Reply With Quote