How are the sentences 我第一次挑战这么高难度的手术 and 这么高难度的手术我第一次挑战 grammatical? Where are the verbs?

Question

97. 挑战 我 第一次 这么高难度的 手术

A HSK5 past exam question is given above; the task is to reorganize the sentence fragments into a grammatical sentence. My (incorrect) answer was:

第一次这么高难度的手术挑战我。

I was hoping this meant something like "my first so-high-difficulty surgery challenges me". I only chose this because the only possible verb I see listed is 挑战:

CC-CEDICT: 挑战 (tiǎo​zhàn​) to challenge / challenge

However, there are two given answers:

我第一次挑战这么高难度的手术。
这么高难度的手术我第一次挑战。
_{Official Examination Papers of HSK (Level 5) (photo)}

It looks (to me) like there are no verbs in these examples, since 挑战 is being used as a noun. It seems like there is an omitted 是 or something.

Question: How are the sentences 我第一次挑战这么高难度的手术 and 这么高难度的手术我第一次挑战 grammatical? Where are the verbs?

Answer 1

since 挑战 is being used as a noun

No, sorry, it's used as a verb.

第一次挑战

In English we would say:
"face (as if in a duel or combat) for the first time".

A vital rule we must always abide to (at least at your level of knowledge, preparing for HSK5) is to use a Chinese monolingual dictionary for the correct meaning/s. Bilingual dictionaries are often misleading. And, it's important, words are used differently in different languages.

挑战
1。(动)故意激怒敌人，使敌人出来打仗。
2。(动)鼓动对方跟自己竞赛。
3。(动)激励自己主动跟困难等做斗争。
4。(名)指需要应付、处理的局面或难题

In our sentence the meaning of 挑战 is n.3, that is you impel yourself to face (as in a fight) such a difficult surgery.

Answer 2

In both of the answers, 挑战 can be seen as the verb.

For this sentence:

我第一次挑战这么高难度的手术。

...the skeleton of this sentence is 我(subject) 挑战(verb) 手术(object)

For this one:

这么高难度的手术我第一次挑战。

... the skeleton is the same, but in an inverted order: 手术 我 挑战.

Inverted sentence is a common sentence structure in Chinese, and it's mainly used to emphasize the object, in this case "the surgery", which is super challenging.

An example that you might have seen is:

我第一次吃这么好吃的拉面
这么好吃的拉面我第一次吃

Answer 3

since 挑战 is being used as a noun

You are thinking of 第一次挑战 as "My first challenge", but 挑战 is still a verb in the following sentences

• [SVO sentence] 我第一次(First time I) 挑战 (challenge) 这么高难度的手术。 (such a difficult operation)

• [Topic + comment sentence] 这么高难度的手术 (such a difficult operation) 我第一次挑战。 (I challenge it for the first time)

次 can be a verb-classifier to indicate the occurrence of a verb

Example:

我第一次游泳 doesn't mean "My first swim". It means "The first time I swim"

我第二次游泳 = the second time I swim

我上次游泳 = the last time I swimed

Notice:

我的第一次游泳 would mean "my first swim"

我的第一次挑战 would mean "my first challenge"

The 的 marks 游泳 and 挑战 as nouns in the sentences above

Answer 4

I think you aren't aware of the difference between 挑战 and 'challenge'.

In Chinese, the subject for the verb 挑战 is a person. E. g. 我挑战高难度。It means I proactively(gather all my energy) deal with the challenge of high difficulty. It connotes that I will fight against it. It denotes one's bravery to achieve something difficult.

This use is quite different between English word 'challenge' and Chinese word 挑战, though they mean the same semantically.

Answer 5

1. 我第一次挑战这么高难度的手术。

• This is the first time I challenge a surgery with such high difficulty.

2. 这么高难度的手术我第一次挑战。

• Such a highly difficult surgery I first time to challenge.

You can see the second answer was not a good sentence, it could be made acceptable by saying:

• 这么高难度的手术"是"我第一次"的"挑战。

• Such a highly difficult surgery is my first-time challenge.

The verbs are the words in the sentences with boldface.

Answer 6

Hi Becky from 3 years ago; don't fret, this is really hard because there are two separate problems here, and both are inhibiting you from resolving the other. (Even years into the future you'd likely still get this HSK problem wrong.)

1. 第一次 can be used before a verb to imply it's being done for the first time. E.g.:

   我去了上海。 I went to Shanghai.
   我第一次去了上海。 I, for the first time, went to Shanghai.

   我吃了火锅。 I ate hot-pot.
   我第一次吃了火锅。 I, for the first time, ate hot-pot

   You're getting this confused here because the Chinese usage of 第一次 is mostly consistent with English

   第一次世界大战 World War I
   这是我第一次去中国。 This is my first time going to China.
   第一次在中国时，你去了那个城市？ The first time you were in China, which cities did you go to?

   where clauses containing 第一次 behave like nouns. But unlike English, we can add 第一次 as an adverbial before a verb meaning "for the first time"; a structure which is not very common, so you haven't encountered much. [In English, to convert "the first time" (noun phrase) to "for the first time" (adverbial phrase) requires using a preposition "for".]

   So these are also considered grammatical:

   我第一次去了中国。 I, for the first time, went to China.
   我是第一次去中国。 I am, for the first time, going to China.

2. The second problem is that 挑战 has a meanings beyond what's listed in CC-CEDICT (and even in your Chinese-Chinese dictionaries), as given in Joe at wearyourchinesename.com's answer:

   (动)激励自己主动跟困难等做斗争。
   (v.) urge oneself to actively take on struggles.

   Here in the future, we have this crazy-intelligent AI called ChatGPT which can whip up many example sentences at precisely the right level using precisely the right meaning of a word; here are some example sentences ChatGPT wrote:

   我们要勇敢地挑战生活中的各种困难。 We will bravely take on life's many challenges.
   团队一致决定挑战这个看似不可能完成的任务。 The team unanimously decided to take on the seemingly incompletable task.

   In fact, the AI can generate many sentences using precisely 第一次挑战 in the same way as in the given sentences:

   我第一次挑战攀登这座高峰。 I am, for the first time, taking on climbing the mountain.
   那位艺术家第一次挑战用抽象形式表达自己的情感。 The artist, for the first time, takes on the task of expressing their own emotions using abstract forms.