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There are cases in which "to be" is translated with 是 ( shì ), while in some other cases it seems not to be translated at all. When should 是 ( shì ) be used? When omitted?

Here some examples: 我很好 wo hen hao I am very well

我是英国人 wǒ-shì-yīng-guó-rén I am English

Wo hen kuai le 我 很快乐 I'm happy

我 25 岁 了 Wǒ èrshíwǔ suì le I'm 25 years old

Disambiguation 1: I landed in a similar question: When should I use the 是...的 construction? Note that it addresses the usage of 是 and的 !

Disambiguation 2: This question has been marked as oossible duplicate of: Why is (是) shi4 dropped in this sentence："我很好"?

Indeed the subject is similar. I think that this question is more General, while the other targets a specific case (I was not able to find it before posting my question!). To be noted that some answers are quite similar.

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    possible duplicate of Why is (是) shi4 dropped in this sentence："我很好"?
    – Claw
    Aug 16, 2015 at 0:51
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    You never use 是 before an adjective as Chinese adjectives are also verbs so "good" also means "to be good". Often 很 seems to take the place of "to be" before an adjective though. I don't know if there are other words besides 很 that can do this or how and why and when it works and doesn't work.
    – hippietrail
    Aug 16, 2015 at 2:39

1 Answer 1

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是 in the first context is only used to say:

Noun1 是 Noun2

You never say 我是很好, because 好 isn't a noun. You can say

我是美国人

他是男孩子

我是李红

because all those relate one noun to another. In the case of 我25岁了, 25 years old isn't a noun, it's a state, and so we don't use 是.

For a simple summary, 是 only relates 2 nouns to each other. If it's not a noun, don't use 是.

You can find more info and examples here, which I find is a good site for beginners to learn chinese, and gives lots of examples to help you understand.

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    是 can also be used as "yes", which is a slightly different usage. You also here this usage in "是吗?", or phrases that use it.
    – sqrtbottle
    Aug 16, 2015 at 0:08
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    An interesting thing to note is that dropping it in the case where it attaches two nouns would result in a scenario where one would assume an omitted 的.
    – user5714
    Aug 16, 2015 at 0:38
  • Can I just ask, in '在小说兴旺的时候，这些媒介是没有的‘ ’没有的‘ is a noun??
    – Pedroski
    Aug 16, 2015 at 2:32
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    @Pedroski that is another construct (…是…的), which is often used to emphasise.
    – Léo Lam
    Aug 16, 2015 at 6:59
  • @Pedroski The noun is omitted after the 的 since it`s retrieved by the context.
    – Enrico Brasil
    Aug 17, 2015 at 13:59

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