"in spite of"

[MarkKang]

Can't figure out how to say this:

If mainland students develop good oral English skills, they do so in spite of the training they receive in public school, not because of it.

[roddy]

I'll have a stab at this. The only way I could see to do this is using 而是 and 尽管 together

中国学生能学好英语口语并不是因为，而是尽管，他们在学校里受的培训

I found other examples of similar structures online:

希特勒进攻俄国，不是因为，而是尽管对英战争仍在进行

[MarkKang]

Hitler attacked Russia, not because, but in spite of (the fact that)/even though the war against the English was still going in.

Well, the english works. I guess I've never heard or seen 而是尽管 used together. Do you have any more examples?

I'll try and get ahold of my old Chinese teacher and see what she thinks.

Thanks, your a truly dedicated pro.

[skylee]

如果大陸的學生能說得一口流利的英語，那是因為他們能超越在公立學校所受的教育，而非拜那學校教育所賜。

[roddy]

Thanks, your a truly dedicated pro.

Let's all pretend that's true for a moment

I'd never actually seen 而是 and 尽管 together before today, but when I was trying to write that sentence in Chinese I found myself wanting to put them together, and when I stuck them into Google I found a few examples so I gave it a shot. Let me know what your Chinese teacher thinks.

Roddy

[Quest]

中国学生能学好英语口语并不是因为，而是尽管，他们在学校里受的培训

I dont understand this

I would just say: 中国学生能学好英语口语是他们自己而并非学校教育的功劳。

[kudra]

I stuck Quest's version into adsotrans.

It glosses 而并非 as "and" + "really is not", which gets at say 80% of "in spite of", but doesn't capture the notion that the training they receive in public school is probably hurting them to some extent. "in spite of" implies something negative about the public school training.

So my question is, does 而并非 imply something negative about pub. sch. training?

Also note that 功劳 fails to adsotate. I couldn't add to adso since I only have copywritten dictionaries to work from. It did convert to pinyin, but the gloss was just 功劳. weird.

[roddy]

Yeah, that's why I didn't use 并不是 or anything like that - as I understand it, the 而非 doesn't tell you that the schools are actually doing more harm than good like 'in spite of' does.

However, as my attempt is incomprehensible, I should probably bow out gracefully . . .

Roddy

EDIT: After consultation both on my sentence and the Hitler one

"完全看不懂"

一点儿都看不懂！完全是错的句子

不对，狗屁不通！中国人经常写错的啊

An object lesson in the use of Google as evidence . .

[trevelyan]

Its a bit old-fashioned, but how about skipping 尽管 and just saying:

就大陆学生来讲，在学校学英语有损而无利。

As far as mainland students are concerned, studying English in school causes harm and doesn't have a single benefit.

Adso glosses 而并非 as "and" + "really is not", which gets at say 80% of "in spite of", but doesn't capture the notion that the training they receive in public school is probably hurting them to some extent. "in spite of" implies something negative about the public school training.

Just added 功劳 as contribution. We switched over to a new grammar processing engine recently and are still putting in constructs, so please don't take the absense of our properly processing anything as indicative that the Chinese language can't be used in some way. If anyone notices a pattern that we should be supporting but aren't or are somehow screwing up though, its appreciated if you can drop a line so I can fix things.