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I play soccer with a bunch of Chinese friends regularly and I want to say "my legs are tired".

I already know 我跑不动了 and 我的腿很酸, but I'm not sure what is the best fit for the Chinese equivelant of "my legs are tired" in English.

Google translate gives me 我的腿累了 and there are plenty of search results where this is used, but this sound doesn't sound right to me, kind of like something a Westerner would say in Chinese. Maybe I'm wrong!

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  • 2
    Absolutely. All three sentences sound normal.
    – 杨以轩
    Oct 9, 2012 at 10:18
  • That's OK for me.
    – Ziyuan
    Oct 9, 2012 at 15:34
  • Also consider 我的腿沒力.
    – Olle Linge
    Oct 9, 2012 at 15:49
  • @OlleLinge 我的腿沒力 without context would be interpreted as 'my legs lack the necessary strength to do something, such as jumping higher' rather than 'my legs are tired'. Oct 9, 2012 at 21:52
  • Yes, I know, but I thought we had a specific context here, such as playing football. Wouldn't that work?
    – Olle Linge
    Oct 10, 2012 at 0:10

7 Answers 7

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我的腿累了 is not as good as 我的腿好累
The former one seems to suggest your leg tires on its own accord and sounds unnatural, where the latter one just states that the legs are tired (a condition). As a comparison, 我的手累了 is quite normal, where the hand seems to be a more active body part.

While other alternatives have subtle differences:

  • 我的腿无力 = My legs are weak. (Maybe from hunger)
  • 我跑不动 = I can't run (Maybe need to catch a breath / or guy is too fat)
  • 我的腿很酸 = My legs are sore. (Maybe from sitting too long in a wrong posture)
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“我的腿累了” seems to be Engchinese if you think about "My legs are tired".

Unusually, “累了(but not a single 累)”'s subject should be HUMAN/PERSON but not any part of human's body!

You should say:

“我的腿(走得/跑得)没劲儿了。”

“我的腿都快酸死了。”

However, in some very special cases, a part of human's body could be the subject of “累了”. E.g.:

我的心累了。 --- My heart burdened be. Or: Something takes it out of me. Or: Doing something was anguishing.

The "heart" is an abstract word on the people's emotion or feeling, so be the word “累了”.

Additionally, similarly, there are some word else should be used on this way, such as “醉了”:

我醉了。 --- I'm drunk.

If someone says “我的嘴巴/胃/大脑醉了”(My mouth/stomach/brain is drunk.), this guy should be really deeply drunk:p

3

我的腿累了 is very normal to say. Alternatively you can say 我的腿没劲了.

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for the native speaker,我的腿累了 is not normal used. We usually use 我跑不动了.

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I think "我跑不动了" or "我快要跑不动了” is right

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There's no such sentence in Chinese. Instead we use "我的腿酸了" "我的腿好酸", which seems authentic.

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Not so good.

I have never use this because it sounds strange.

Follow your feeling, don't use these words that you don't like to use.

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  • 3
    Could you provide some suggestions of what would be better to use in this case?
    – going
    Oct 10, 2012 at 1:45
  • Well.. It doesn't sound strange to me though... Oct 13, 2012 at 12:22

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