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What do you think should be done about it? 你觉得对此该做什么?

this is the translation online I found for this English sentence. The translation makes some sense, but I'm not quite sure what the point of "对此" is. I know it means "towards this" but I don't know why it's used here.

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  • Best to avoid in orally, especially for learners, unless your pronunciation is absolutely spot on it's going to be hard for anyone to guess that you would be using such a formal word like 对此.
    – Mou某
    May 22, 2017 at 4:44

4 Answers 4

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but I'm not quite sure what the point of "对此" is. I know it means "towards this" but I don't know why it's used here.

'(this)' short for '此事(this affair)'. It is the pronoun for the topic that's preceded the sentence itself.

[topic]: "老师们正在威胁罢工" - "teachers are threatening to strike"

[comment]: "你觉得对此该做什么?" - what you think should be done toward (about) it?"

(事) is the pronoun for this (affair) : teachers are threatening to strike

[topic]+[comment] is a common sentence structure, if you don't use the pronoun for the topic, you would end up with sentence like this:

"老师们正在威胁罢工, 你觉得对[老师们正在威胁罢工]该做什么?"

  • In this case, you can just omit the topic and make "你觉得对老师们正在威胁罢工该做什么?" a complete sentence on its own

It is just common sense to not repeat the topic in the comment.

"老师们正在威胁罢工, 你觉得对[]该做什么?"

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What 什么
you 你
think 觉得
should 该
done 做
about 对
it 此

So, 对此 is used because of "about it".

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對此

此 is like a pronoun "this" in English for something mentioned before.

對 is like "refer to", "point to", "for", "about"

By adding 對此, it is to specify this question which is related to something mentioned before.

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I think it's just an emphasis. Actually you can just leave it out if the context is clear.

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