The first sentence in the story is: 这是个炎热的夏日.
Here is the translation and pinyin for each character in the sentence: 这(zhe4;this)是(shi4;is)个(gu)炎(yan2-scorching;buring
hot)热(re4-hot)的(de)夏(zia4-summer)日(ri4).So
literally translated this means: This is a scorching hot summer’s day.
Notes:
- I translated the general measure word (个) as a even though strictly speaking Chinese does not have an indefinite article. I am wondering is the original should not have been 一个 instead of just 个. http://mylanguages.org/chinese_articles.php
- The possessive particle 的 is used here purely to indicate that it is the day that is hot. I initially thought that it was used to indicate that an adjectival verb (热) was used as a pure adjective instead of a verb. That would have meant that 炎 would have been the adjectival verb’s (热) intensifier. I cannot find evidence for this.
If anybody is reading this and disagrees with any of my translations or thoughts then I would appreaciate any feedback.
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