Does ...我的中文知识不足够的，所以不可能帮你们... sound awkward?

Question

I recently tried to compose a sentence to some who told me they were translating a book from English to Chinese. I responded to them:

太好了！很不幸，我的中文知识不足够的，所以不可能帮你们。加油，我很兴奋的！

As I am not a native speaker and my Chinese is quite poor, I cannot tell whether it will sound natural to a native Chinese speaker, or is just barely-passable 老外中文.

Notice that I have omitted the 因为 that should be there to match the 所以 clause. My understanding is that it is okay to omit either one or the other and still have the meaning understood, but I'm sure there are complex rules about which can be omitted in different contexts.

I also had originally started the second sentence as "不幸我的中文..." with the intended meaning of "Unfortunately, my Chinese...". However I chose instead to separate it into an introduction as I wasn't sure whether 不幸 prepended to the beginning of the sentence would make it harder for the absent 因为 to be inferred. I decided to try to play it safe and instead say "It is very unfortunate; my Chinese...".

After my first 我 I omitted the second one which could have gone in "所以不可能帮你们". My understanding is that in Chinese you do not repeat 我 as much as you do "I" in English. I did, however, use it for the next sentence which introduces a new topic.

Finally, the second sentence seemed a little convoluted to me and while I think it is understandable, I don't think it seems natural at all. My intended meaning was "My Chinese mastery is insufficient, ...", but again I think this part is clunky and unnatural.

Answer 1

The sentence of "太好了！很不幸，我的中文知识不足够的，所以不可能帮你们。加油，我很兴奋的！" can be understood by a native Chinese speaker, but it certainly doesn't sound natural. If used by a native speaker, it would have been more natural to say "太好了，但很可惜，我的中文水平还不够好，所以可能无法帮到你们。加油，支持你们！"

"不幸" means “misfortune” or "misery" which is larger than what you mean. "可惜" means “pity”, which is more fit.

"不可能" means “totally impossible” which doesn't sound friendly. "可能无法" means “I wish but might not be able to”, which shows you're willing to help but because of temporary insufficiency in Chinese language skills might not be able to, which shows amicability.

"兴奋" means “excited”， I guess that's not what you mean. I guess you might mean that you are happy to know they are working on the translation, or you just wanted to support them. Here usually in a daily conservation a native speaker might say "支持你们" which means “I support you”.

Btw, I'm a native Chinese speaker. There are quite significant number of nuances in transforming your Chinese skills to native level. It's very painstaking and involves a lot of practice. I went through the same when learning English. So 支持你！

Answer 2

Well, I can understand your meaning very well, it's good!

For some recommendations，

“太好了！”

There's an adversative after it, you can use "只是" (but).

“很不幸” should be “很遗憾” (unfortunately)

“我的中文知识不足以帮到你们”

Well, just for the second sentence, I can't imagine what do you want to mean by "我很兴奋的"... but you can use “支持你们！” (support you)

太好了！只是很遗憾，我的中文知识不足以帮到你们。支持你们，加油！

Answer 3

haha,I just find Chinese topic in StackOverflow excitely today. By the way, the translation above is much more natural than before.But i think this will be much better:

太好了！可惜，我的英文不好，不能帮助你们。支持你们，加油！