Breakdown of tā bù xiǎng ràng biéren bāng tā zuò zuòyè.
Questions & Answers about tā bù xiǎng ràng biéren bāng tā zuò zuòyè.
In this sentence, 让 (ràng) is a causative / permissive verb meaning “let / allow / have (someone do something)”.
- 她不想让别人帮她做作业。
= She doesn’t want to let others help her with her homework.
Structure: 她 + 不想 + 让 + 别人 + 帮 + 她 + 做作业
If you drop 让:
- 她不想别人帮她做作业。
This is also grammatical and common. It means almost the same:
“She doesn’t want others to help her with her homework.”
Nuance:
- With 让: Emphasizes the idea of allowing / letting others help.
- Without 让: Slightly more direct, just “doesn’t want others to help.”
In everyday speech, both versions are fine; 让 is often optional in this pattern.
Here 想 means “to want / feel like”, not “to think”.
- 她不想让别人帮她做作业。
= She doesn’t want others to help her with her homework.
Comparison:
- 想: relatively soft, about one’s wish / inclination.
- 她不想去。= She doesn’t feel like going / doesn’t want to go.
- 要: stronger, more insistent / determined “want” or “going to”.
- 她不要别人帮她做作业。
= She doesn’t want / refuses to have others help with her homework
(sounds firmer, more like rejecting help).
- 她不要别人帮她做作业。
- 愿意: “to be willing (to)”.
- 她不愿意让别人帮她做作业。
= She is not willing to let others help her with her homework
(focus on willingness rather than simple desire).
- 她不愿意让别人帮她做作业。
So 不想 here presents her as simply not wanting that situation, without sounding very harsh or confrontational.
不 and 没 are both negatives, but they’re used differently:
- 不: Negates present/future, general facts, habits, or volition.
- 没: Negates past events, existence, possession, completion.
In this sentence:
- 她不想让别人帮她做作业。
She does not want others to help her with her homework.
→ This is about her current attitude / desire, not about something that did or didn’t happen in the past.
Using 没想 here would be wrong, because you’re not negating a past act of “thinking/wanting”; you’re expressing her current lack of desire. So 不想 is correct.
The two 她 have different grammatical roles:
- First 她: the subject – the person who doesn’t want something.
- 她 不想让别人帮她做作业。
- Second 她: the object of 帮 (to help) – the person who receives the help.
- …帮 她 做作业 = help her do homework
Can we drop the second 她?
- ✗ 她不想让别人帮做作业。
This is unnatural / incomplete. The verb 帮 (help) very strongly expects a person or group to be helped: 帮谁？
Can we use 自己?
- 她不想让别人帮自己做作业。
This is grammatical and means “She doesn’t want others to help herself do homework.”
Because the subject is 她, 自己 is understood as referring back to her.
It emphasizes that it’s her own homework she doesn’t want help with.
So:
- 帮她 → help her (could in theory be someone else’s homework)
- 帮自己 → help herself (definitely her own work)
帮 is a verb meaning “to help”, and it normally follows this pattern:
- 帮 + person + do something
- 帮她做作业 = help her do homework
- 帮我找一下 = help me look for it
- 帮他搬桌子 = help him move the table
帮忙 (bāngmáng) is usually used without a direct object right after it. It’s more like “to give (someone) a hand / lend a hand”:
- 你可以帮忙吗？= Can you help (out)?
- 你能帮我个忙吗？= Can you do me a favor?
So:
- ✔ 帮她做作业 – correct
- ✗ 帮忙她做作业 – wrong/ungrammatical
- ✔ 帮她一个忙 – “do her a favor” (uses 忙 as a noun)
The sentence follows a common Chinese pattern:
Subject + 不想 + 让 + Person + Verb + Object
Applied to this sentence:
- Subject: 她
- 不想: doesn’t want to
- 让: let / have
- Person: 别人 (others)
- Verb: 帮 (help)
- Object / action: 她做作业 (her do homework)
So:
她 不想 让 别人 帮 她 做作业。
Literally:
She not-want let others help her do-homework.
Important point:
- In Chinese, the helper 帮 comes before the person being helped, not after:
- 帮她做作业 = help her do homework
You cannot shuffle these elements freely; 帮 + 人 + 动作 is the fixed pattern.
- 帮她做作业 = help her do homework
别人 means “other people / others” in general.
- 她不想让别人帮她做作业。
= She doesn’t want other people to help her with her homework.
Comparisons:
- 别人: “other people” (general, often used alone)
- 我不信别人。= I don’t trust others.
- 其他人: also “other people”, a bit more explicit / formal, often when contrasting with a specific group.
- 除了他，其他人都来了。= Except for him, everyone else came.
- Here you could say: 她不想让其他人帮她做作业。 (also fine)
- 别的: means “other / else” but usually modifies a noun.
- 别的人 = other people
- 别的东西 = other things
You wouldn’t just say ✗ 她不想让别的帮她做作业. You’d need 别的人 to make it correct.
In this sentence, 别人 is the most natural and common word.
You can form a passive version, but it’s much less natural for this meaning.
- 她不想被别人帮着做作业。
Literally: She doesn’t want to be helped by others (while) doing homework.
Issues:
- Adding 被 makes it sound like some unwanted external action imposed on her.
- Using 帮着 adds a continuous aspect (“being helped (along)”), which is fine grammatically but not needed here.
Native speakers almost always express this idea with the active pattern:
- 她不想让别人帮她做作业。
- 她不想别人帮她做作业。
The passive with 被 would be used more often for actions like being hit, criticized, cheated, etc., not for ordinary polite help in this kind of sentence.
Both 做作业 and 写作业 are used, but they have slightly different focuses:
- 做作业: literally “do homework”
- Very common, general expression:
我在做作业。= I’m doing homework.
- Very common, general expression:
- 写作业: literally “write homework”
- Often used when the homework mainly involves writing (e.g., writing characters, answers).
我得先写作业。= I have to write (do) my homework first.
- Often used when the homework mainly involves writing (e.g., writing characters, answers).
In most contexts, 做作业 is the default, safest choice and fits all types of homework.
In this sentence, 做作业 is perfectly natural and probably the most neutral option.
They are related but not identical:
她不想让别人帮她做作业。
- Focus: her desire / attitude.
- Meaning: She doesn’t want to let others help her with her homework.
- It describes how she feels about the idea of others helping.
她不让别人帮她做作业。
- Focus: her action / behavior.
- Meaning: She doesn’t allow others to help her with her homework.
- This sounds more decisive / controlling: she actively prevents others from helping.
So:
- 不想让: “doesn’t want to let…” → inner preference
- 不让: “won’t let / doesn’t allow…” → outward restriction
In many situations, the first is softer and more about her personal preference.
The character 不 is normally 4th tone (bù), but it has a tone-sandhi rule:
- Before a 4th-tone syllable, 不 changes to bú.
Example:- 不对 → bú duì
- 不要 → bú yào
In this sentence:
- 不想: 想 is 3rd tone (xiǎng), not 4th.
- So 不 keeps its original 4th tone:
bù xiǎng (不想)
So the correct pronunciation of the start of the sentence is:
tā bù xiǎng ràng biéren bāng tā zuò zuòyè.
The pattern is general and very common:
不想让 + somebody + (verb phrase)
= “don’t want to let somebody (do something)”
You can use many different verbs, for example:
- 我不想让他知道。
= I don’t want to let him know. - 她不想让父母担心。
= She doesn’t want to let her parents worry. - 他们不想让别人看到这些照片。
= They don’t want to let others see these photos. - 我不想让你一个人去。
= I don’t want to let you go alone.
So 帮 in your sentence is just one verb in a very productive pattern.