Meaning of 他希望自己的知識面能更加寬闊

Question

他希望自己的知識面能更加寬闊

What does 面 mean here? It seems unnecessary because 他希望自己的知識能更加寬闊 is much more clearer. Thanks.

Answer 1

Here, 面 shall be interpreted as "dimension".

More formally, the sentence should be "他希望自己的知識層面能更加寬闊". "層面" is a word for "范围" or "领域" in Chinese, and "aspect" or "level" in English, so the person is wishing to diverse/broaden his knowledge base.

Answer 2

知识面: range or scope of knowledge

他一向主张大学生的知识面要宽一些。
He has always been of the opinion that university students ought to have a wider range of knowledge.

Answer 3

知识面 means 智力成果的范围 scope of knowledge, use wide or narrow to describe it. But I didn't find one answer for sure, so I show all my thought in the following.

1. 面 is 方面 (aspect), 宽阔 means wide. 知识面宽阔 means someone knows many different aspects/kinds of knowledge, such as biology, geography, literature, art and so on.

2. 面 is 平面 (plane) can also help you understand that. Imagine knowledge as a plane, so the more knowledge you have, the wider this "plane" will be in terms of area. I feel this description just like "broaden your horizon"…

Without 面， your sentence is not about width in the area, but quantity. You can use 他希望自己的知識能更加丰富.

丰富 means rich, to emphasis on the quantity of knowledge. “enrich one’s knowledge"

Hope this can help :)