# 订好



## Hakkar

Hello everyone and thanks for reading. What does 好 mean in this sentence? Thank you very much and thanks for reading.


_都_ 怨 你，不 提前 订好 座位。


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## SimonTsai

It's an adverb that suggests the perfect tense and means something like 'ready', I would say.

It's all you fault. You could have booked the seats but you didn't. What a situation we're in now!​


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## SuperXW

verb + 好 + something = get something done well


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## T.D

SuperXW said:


> verb + 好 + something = get something done well


The "well" part is not necessary I suppose. 
你作业做好了吗？asks for whether the homework is finished, not the quality.


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## 2PieRad

作业做了吗？
作业做好了吗？

好 does imply a little bit of 'well/properly', does it not?


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## T.D

Erebos12345 said:


> 作业做了吗？
> 作业做好了吗？
> 
> 好 does imply a little bit of 'well/properly', does it not?


Umm...I don't think so. Here 好 implies the completion of an action, not how well it's done.


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## SuperXW

T.D said:


> Umm...I don't think so. Here 好 implies the completion of an action, not how well it's done.


I'm with Erebos12345. I think it does imply a little bit of 'well/properly'.
Compare: 
做完了吗？/ 做好了吗？
做完了。/ 做好了。
At least, one way of understanding it is 'done well/properly'.


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## SimonTsai

他是掉到茅坑裏了是不是？怎麼二十分鐘還沒【好】？

In the example sentence right above, '好' doesn't suggest 'well/properly'.


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## SuperXW

SimonTsai said:


> 他是掉到茅坑裏了是不是？怎麼二十分鐘還沒【好】？
> 
> In the example sentence right above, '好' doesn't suggst 'well/properly'.


I said "one way", not "always".
The tricky thing is, there isn't any way to tell whether it means "well/properly" or "completed".
It only depends on how we interpret it according to the context.
Even in your example, it can still imply "well/properly", considering 掉茅坑里 = "not well done/improperly".

Another thing to consider is that, in OP's sentence, 订好座位 cannot be replaced by 订完座位.


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## 2PieRad

Alternatively, you could simply say 不提前订座位. But it feels markedly different from 不提前订好座位。

At any rate, I’d still trust the quality of someone’s work more if they told me it was 做好了 and not just 做了 or 做完了。


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## SimonTsai

'做好' and '做完' can mean different things, indeed, but in a different context. For example, '事情不是做完就算了, 要做就要做好.' Or '他雖然還沒做完, 但有做的部分都有做好.'


Erebos12345 said:


> But it feels markedly different from 不提前订好座位。


What is the possible difference you spot or smell (in the context of booking seats in a restaurant)?


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## 2PieRad

Well, to represent a completed action (perfect tense), wouldn't it have been more accurate for the OP's source to use *没*提前订... ≈ you didn’t book in advance _this time?_
*不*提前订... could be interpreted as a habitual action. ≈ you (as a regular habit) don’t book in advance.
I'm not sure how much the addition of 好 influences the "completed-ness" of the action.
没提前订，不提前订
没提前订好、不提前订好

In practice, tenses are not as well defined in Chinese, I suppose.

I was thinking more train or plane seats. I generally don't dine at places posh enough to require seat reservations. 🤷‍♂️
都怨你，不提前订座位。航空公司超卖座位，我们现在连座位都没有。
都怨你，不提前订好座位。我们一家人的座位都不在一起。订的时候没注意到吗？

edit-订好 also seems fine in my first example but 订 alone in my second example doesn’t seem right.


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## SimonTsai

Erebos12345 said:


> 不提前订... could be interpreted as a habitual action. ≈ you (as a regular habit) don’t book in advance.


The negative adverb 不 can imply intention. For example, you may find 我不吸毒 in an anti-drug abuse campaign and you may have heard the saying, '不聽老人言, 吃虧在眼前.'

不提前訂座位, 不準時上學, 不乖乖寫作業 and 不說實話 are stronger accusations than 沒提前訂座位, 沒準時上學, 沒寫作業 and 沒說實話.


> but 订 alone in my second example doesn’t seem right.


I see nothing wrong. '好' doesn't suggest 'well/properly':

You could have booked the seats much, much earlier but you didn't; you insisted on being late. If you had booked the seats one or two weeks ago, we could have had more choices and got better seats.​
Your second example sentence would work if the ending question were to be removed. Above is my interpretation assuming it were removed. Now it is included, your sentence doesn't work. (To say the same thing, I think I might say, '還不都怪你! 你這座位怎麼訂的!')


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## 2PieRad

SimonTsai said:


> Your second example sentence would work if the ending question were to be removed. Above is my interpretation assuming it were removed. Now it is included, your sentence doesn't work. (To say the same thing, I think I might say, '還不都怪你! 你這座位怎麼訂的!')


Does it not work? My goal was to come up with a situation where it was indeed done in advance but it wasn’t done well/properly. 🤷‍


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## SimonTsai

To be precise, it doesn't work for me. But you've got a thumbs up, so maybe it works for some other people.

Logically speaking, ~(A ∧ B) <==> (~A) ∨ (~B). In our case A = 提前 and B = 訂好. So it is logically correct to say ~B ==> ~(A ∧ B), but in real life, if A is true and if A is grammatically dispensable, then what is the point in mentioning A in saying that B is untrue? I personally genuinely don't see any.

So, in practice, if you were to say, 他不提前訂好座位, I would infer that he didn't book the seats in advance. Maybe he booked the seats in a hurry just now.

Compare 還沒訂好座位 with 沒訂到好座位.


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## Messquito

Erebos12345 said:


> Well, to represent a completed action (perfect tense), wouldn't it have been more accurate for the OP's source to use *没*提前订... ≈ you didn’t book in advance _this time?_
> *不*提前订... could be interpreted as a habitual action. ≈ you (as a regular habit) don’t book in advance.
> I'm not sure how much the addition of 好 influences the "completed-ness" of the action.
> 没提前订，不提前订
> 没提前订好、不提前订好
> 
> In practice, tenses are not as well defined in Chinese, I suppose.
> 
> I was thinking more train or plane seats. I generally don't dine at places posh enough to require seat reservations. 🤷‍♂️
> 都怨你，不提前订座位。航空公司超卖座位，我们现在连座位都没有。
> 都怨你，不提前订好座位。我们一家人的座位都不在一起。订的时候没注意到吗？
> 
> edit-订好 also seems fine in my first example but 订 alone in my second example doesn’t seem right.


不提前訂座位 suggests that "you" didn't make the effort to book a seat _at all_.
不提前訂好座位 doesn't suggest that. The above could be the case, or it could be that "you" actually searched for the ticket, and got the price, but forgot to book it. Or perhaps you booked it, but your credit card failed and you didn't notice because you forgot to check for a confirmation. i.e. You might have _initiated the action but didn't follow through._


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## 2PieRad

Thereby reflecting the overall _quality_ (or lack thereof) of your work, nah? -that you did it haphazardly - not properly/not well -


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## Messquito

Not really. 好 just means there is a _task_, and you've _completed_ the task by hitting _all the requirements_.
If in case you want to praise the booker for snatching a nice deal, say the following:
訂得好！
訂得很好啊！
訂得不錯喔！
很會訂喔！

If you want to expressly say that "I know you did try to book it" you could say something like 訂位的時候不訂好 to indicate that the action of 訂位 did happen.


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## 2PieRad

Messquito said:


> you've _completed_ the task by hitting _all the requirements_.


Still sounds like quality/well/properly to me. 🤷‍♂️


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## Messquito

If by quality, you mean if the booker actually gets you on the train you intend to ride on, then yes, but nothing is implied beyond that.
So maybe the booker managed a deal that saved you 30% and also bumped you up to first class. None of that would be implied if they simply say 我訂好了。


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## 2PieRad

Hence my example in #12. 'Twas booked indeed but 'twas not done well because you didn't realize you had booked seats separated from each other. That's the baseline expectation for not just a job that is _done_ but a job that is _done properly_. Discounts and upgrades are superfluous. You could, either out of sheer carelessness, or knowingly book us all craptacular middle seats by the toilets all separated from each other, even if there are better options available...I don't know...you certainly 订座位了, but would you tell us you 座位订好了? What would someone's response likely be if you were to say the latter in this situation?


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## Messquito

I would say no, they didn't 訂好, but really it depends on what the "task" is like in the speaker's mind. For the one asking tickets to be booked, they of course think "adjacent seats" is one of the requirements, which is why they would say 你座位沒訂好。In contrast, the ticket booker, in self-defense, could contend that getting all of them on that vehicle is the only requirement they have in mind, thus saying 我這樣已經算訂好了吧！

There is also a complication in that scenario:
Did they not get adjoining seats because:
1. the booker didn't bother to make sure, or
2. no adjoining seats were available by the time the booker initiated the booking (booker was too late!) (This is how SimonTsai interpreted it in #13)

If it's 1.-
...，不訂好座位
(you didn't get the job done (properly))
would be the best fit. The reason I omitted 提早 is because it's not a matter of timeliness, but whether he cared enough to get the job done. In any case, if tickets for adjoining seats were secured, it wouldn't have mattered if he had gotten them early or at the last minute.
For 2., then -
...，不提早訂座位
(you didn't (attempt to) do the job early enough)
would work best. The "不提早" is the culprit here. They didn't initiate the task early enough, thus not able to secure a favorable seat arrangement.
The logic would be: 你不*提早訂座位*，才會沒辦法*訂好座位*。

Note that both of the above suggestions are made assuming *"adjoining seats" were the requirements*.

If you say ...，不提早訂好座位, it would suggest that there is a difference between 提早訂好座位 and 晚點訂好座位 and that the former is more ideal.
I can think of two reasons:
1. Maybe the speaker doesn't really consider "adjoining seats" a requirement or feel like they haven't communicated that clearly enough. Hence, 訂好 surely doesn't mean they got the ideal seat arrangement. But of course, 訂好(i.e. got them seats)不代表訂得夠好(i.e. got them good seats), hence the complaint.
2. "Adjoining seats" could still be a must, but the complaint is about a whole other issue, e.g. they have to pay so much more than early birds, etc., which falls out of your second scenario.


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## Vicky Waugh

Hakkar said:


> Hello everyone and thanks for reading. What does 好 mean in this sentence? Thank you very much and thanks for reading.
> 
> 
> _都_ 怨 你，不 提前 订好 座位。


Hi , I'm honored to answer this question for you. It's translated into English is "I blame you for not completing to book seats in advance" , so "好“ in this sentence means "complete".


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## stephenlearner

Erebos12345 said:


> 都怨你，不提前订好座位。我们一家人的座位都不在一起。订的时候没注意到吗？


Initially, I thought 好 means completion. But your example makes me change my mind. 好 can mean properly. 生活中有太多这样的例子：做了，或做完了，但是没有做好。


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## Styx09

My understanding, no need to be too fastidious about the wording. 好 here simply means completion/done/ready.


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## stephenlearner

Styx09 said:


> My understanding, no need to be too fastidious about the wording. 好 here simply means completion/done/ready.


如果你订票时发生了#12所说的第二种情况，后来你妻子问你，“票定好了吗？”你如何回答？

如果你回答“订好了”，我想几乎所有的妻子知道实际情况后都会埋怨说，这也叫订好了？

This is not hair-splitting tiff, but intended to detect their nuance.


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## prothes

emmmm,It's 'done'.


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