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I was trying to describe the encounter between 郭靖,黄蓉 and 洪七公 in 射雕英雄傳。 There, Huang Rong proposes a game, which purpose is to guess the names of dishes she has prepared. That always proves impossible due to the way her father named the dishes, making lots of allusions to literature.

The sentence I wrote was:

遊戲的目的是猜到黄蓉煮的美食的名字。

I realise this sounds bad due to the double 的。 What I don’t understand is, why the 到 was stricken out!

Edit: 1 perhaps I misunderstood my teacher‘s corrections. I post a picture: enter image description here

Edit 2: this is really depressing. Opinions of native speakers on 猜 and 猜到 (on my campus) show no pattern. At least 猜出 seems a clear favourite.

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    it is 射雕英雄傳, the official title of the novel
    – Tang Ho
    Commented May 2, 2018 at 21:55

1 Answer 1

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Use 到 as the result complement of 猜 is not wrong

猜 = to guess

= to guess successfully/ correctly

The goal of the game is to successfully guess the names of the dish. (not just making guesses)

Neither 的 in "[黄蓉煮的][美食的名字]" can be omitted

  • 黄蓉煮的 is the adjective phrase for 美食

  • 黄蓉煮的美食的 is the adjective phrase for 名字

"[黄蓉煮美食][的名字]" or "[黄蓉煮的美食][名字]" are both incomplete

Edit:

After seeing the picture, I think your teacher's correction was very sloppy.

  • If you wrote "遊戲的(内容)是猜(到)黄蓉煮的美食的名字", then 到 would be a mistake, you should write "遊戲的(内容)是(去)猜黄蓉煮的美食的名字

  • "目的 (the goal)" is "猜到" (to guess right)" ; "内容/玩法 (the way to play)" is "去猜 (to guess)"

'目标' (the goal of winning) would be better than '目的'

'去猜出' (figure out) would be better than '猜到'

(遊戲的目标是去猜出)

  • 得 in 闻得出来了 is not wrong. Actually, the final particle 了 should be omitted because the sentence doesn't end there.

  • Also he didn't correct 名子 back to, 名字 or 蓉儿 back to 黄蓉

蓉儿 is a nickname only her loved one could use to address her. For us readers, she is always 黄蓉

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  • Wow! How many mistakes I can make on such a short stripe! Thank you!
    – Ludi
    Commented May 2, 2018 at 22:13

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