Can someone help me understand 世上只有妈妈好?

[Pegasus]

Can anyone please help me understand:
世上只有媽媽好 

shì shàng zhǐ yǒu māma hǎo

 

This is the title and the first line of lyrics from a well-known children's song. 

 

When I first encountered this sentence, I (as a beginning–intermediate Chinese language learner) understood it to mean, “In the world, only Mom is good,” which is wrong. That's not what it means. But that's what it sounded like to me, and yes, I was scratching my head because, of course, it would be very strange to tell a child that only Mom is good in the world. 

 

It actually means, “Mom is the best in the world,” which makes more sense. 

 

Can someone explain (help me understand) why this sentence means what it means? Is there a grammatical point or sentence pattern that can help me understand it more generally? 

 

Why does this combination of words in this order not mean “In the world, only Mom is good.”

 

Because I don't really understand why this sentence means what it means, I think there may be other sentences that could be constructed with this same (or similar) pattern that I'll probably misunderstand initially. 

 

Can anyone come up with examples of other sentences that follow this type of word pattern along with their correct translations to help me better “grok” this type of sentence?

 

 

Side note: This reminds me of another type of sentence in Chinese that I found quite confusing when I first encountered it. (And I guess I still find it confusing.) My mother-in-law would have me try some food/dessert she was preparing in the kitchen and ask me something like “X 甜 嗎?” And my simple brain thought she was asking me, “Is it sweet?”. I answered “yes” because I thought it was delicious and sweet. But what she was really asking me was, “Is it too sweet?”. So, what I should have said was, “No, it's not too sweet. It's just the right amount of sweet.”

 

Like, in my brain, I'm thinking, why doesn't she say "X 太甜嗎?" Then I would immediately understand that she was asking me, "Is it too sweet." But I just had to learn that in Chinese you can omit 太 in a sentence like this and still have the meaning "too". 

 

I wonder if my misunderstanding of this type of sentence is related at all to my misunderstanding of the sentence from the children's song “世上只有媽媽好”, or is it is completely unrelated? 
 

Thank you in advance for your help.

[honglam]

On 3/1/2024 at 11:28 AM, Pegasus said:

Can anyone please help me understand:
世上只有媽媽好 

shì shàng zhǐ yǒu māma hǎo

 

This is the title and the first line of lyrics from a well-known children's song. 

 

When I first encountered this sentence, I (as a beginning–intermediate Chinese language learner) understood it to mean, “In the world, only Mom is good,” which is wrong. That's not what it means. But that's what it sounded like to me, and yes, I was scratching my head because, of course, it would be very strange to tell a child that only Mom is good in the world. 

 

It actually means, “Mom is the best in the world,” which makes more sense. 

 

Can someone explain (help me understand) why this sentence means what it means? Is there a grammatical point or sentence pattern that can help me understand it more generally? 

 

Why does this combination of words in this order not mean “In the world, only Mom is good.”

 

Because I don't really understand why this sentence means what it means, I think there may be other sentences that could be constructed with this same (or similar) pattern that I'll probably misunderstand initially. 

 

Can anyone come up with examples of other sentences that follow this type of word pattern along with their correct translations to help me better “grok” this type of sentence?

This song is originally the theme song of a movie called , which tells a story that an orphan adopted by a kind madam has to leave her foster mother to find her original family to avoid being sold by her greedy foster father. So the lyrics summarize the whole story simply. The movie was a great success, which leaded to the widespread of this song. Grammatically this sentence does mean "in the world only mother is good". Only the personal interpretation of this sentence is different.

On 3/1/2024 at 11:28 AM, Pegasus said:

Side note: This reminds me of another type of sentence in Chinese that I found quite confusing when I first encountered it. (And I guess I still find it confusing.) My mother-in-law would have me try some food/dessert she was preparing in the kitchen and ask me something like “X 甜 嗎?” And my simple brain thought she was asking me, “Is it sweet?”. I answered “yes” because I thought it was delicious and sweet. But what she was really asking me was, “Is it too sweet?”. So, what I should have said was, “No, it's not too sweet. It's just the right amount of sweet.”

 

Like, in my brain, I'm thinking, why doesn't she say "X 太甜嗎?" Then I would immediately understand that she was asking me, "Is it too sweet." But I just had to learn that in Chinese you can omit 太 in a sentence like this and still have the meaning "too". 

 

I wonder if my misunderstanding of this type of sentence is related at all to my misunderstanding of the sentence from the children's song “世上只有媽媽好”, or is it is completely unrelated? 
 

Thank you in advance for your help.

I think it's just a habit. To express "it's just right amount of sweet", I'd reply "正好". This is not the only example of the subtleness and indirect of oral Chinese as well.

[cncorrect]

This is a song from the movie called 'My Beloved (《妈妈再爱我一次》https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV11s4y1t7Yd/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click&vd_source=992dfc7dc01ab14e4fa393680cdf1811)'. It does mean '“In the world, only Mom is good", which is an exaggerated way of saying things. If you know what the movie is about, it will help you understand why the exaggeration is used.

 

It does mean “Is it sweet?” They are trying to gauge what's your real opinion. But next time, you should try to understand her intention.

[Cherry Bai]

literally "只zhi" means "only", but I don't think it's proper here. It's used in Children's song to express that "Mom is the best in the whole world" as you mentioned. there is no grammar here. the reason why the sentence use "only" is that the song is the theme song of a sad movie called "妈妈再爱我一次”.