Translation for sentence with important a grammar point: 没有。。。那么

Question

This is the English sentence. I was wondering if the translation is correct. I have to use 没有。。。那么 in my sentence.

Chinese is not as difficult as people think。 Use：没有。。。那么

中文没有人们想那么难

Thank you very much.

Answer 1

I feel 中文没有人们想那么难 is grammatically incorrect because 想 is a verb, so we need to add a 的 afterwards. However, 想 is also an imprecise word choice since it has connotations of "wanting" something.

I suggest the following:

中文没有人们想象的那么难。

I changed 想 (to think) to 想象 (to imagine), and you can check online it's commonly used this way. Here, 人们想象的 refers to something along the lines of "what people imagine".

Related examples "in the wild":

我认为这没有人们想象的那么难。 (source)
I feel this is not as difficult as people imagine.

高校腐败没有人们想象的那么严重。 (source)
Corruption in university and colleges is not as serious as people imagine.

历史上的杜甫，没有人们想象的那么穷苦。 (source)
History's Du Fu [was] not as impoverished as people imagine.

事情远没有人们想象的那么简单。 (source)
[The] matter is rather not as simple as people imagine.