Learn Hardcore Chinese: shǔjià bǐ hánjià cháng, dàxuéshēng yǒu shíjiān lǚyóu huòzhě huí lǎojiā kànkan qīnqi. - Summer vacation is longer than winter vacation, and college students have time to travel or go back to their hometowns to visit relatives.

There is no extra word like more; the adjective 长 already carries the idea “long/longer” in this structure.
You do not add 更 here:
✗ 暑假比寒假更长 is possible but stronger, like “even longer / much longer.”
Plain comparison is just A 比 B + adj.

Why does 长 come at the end in 暑假比寒假长? Why not put 长 earlier like in English?

In Chinese, adjectives that describe the subject usually come after any comparison phrase and directly after the subject/comparison structure.

Structure:

Subject (暑假) + 比 phrase (比寒假) + adjective (长)

So:

暑假比寒假长
= “As for summer vacation, compared with winter vacation, (it is) long.”

Chinese doesn’t need a verb like to be here. The adjective 长 directly functions as the predicate, so it naturally comes at the end of this clause.

Why is there a comma between 暑假比寒假长 and 大学生有时间…? Are these two sentences or one?

They are two closely related clauses joined into one sentence with a comma:

暑假比寒假长 – “Summer vacation is longer than winter vacation.”
大学生有时间旅游或者回老家看看亲戚 – “College students have time to travel or go back to their hometown to visit relatives.”

The logic is:
“Because summer vacation is longer than winter vacation, college students have time to travel or go home to see relatives.”

In Chinese, it’s very common to:

Put the reason or background first,
Follow it with the result,
And just separate them with a comma instead of an explicit “because/so” combination.

You could make the causal relationship more explicit:

因为暑假比寒假长，大学生有时间…… (“Because…”)
Or: 暑假比寒假长，所以大学生有时间…… (“So…”)

But the sentence works fine and naturally without those words.

What exactly does 有时间 do here? Why isn’t there a word like “to” before the verbs “travel” and “go back home”?

有时间 literally means “to have time”:

大学生有时间 – “College students have time.”

In Chinese, when you want to say “have time to do something”, you just put the verb phrase directly after 有时间:

有时间 + 旅游
有时间 + 回老家看看亲戚

So:

大学生有时间旅游或者回老家看看亲戚。
→ “College students have time (to) travel or go back to their hometown and visit relatives.”

There is no extra word corresponding to English “to” here; just 有时间 + action.

What’s the difference between 旅游 and other words like 旅行? Why is 旅游 used here?

Both 旅游 and 旅行 relate to “travel”, but they have slightly different typical uses.

旅游:

Focuses on traveling for leisure, sightseeing, vacation.
Often a general activity: 去旅游, 暑假旅游.
Common in everyday speech about trips for fun.

旅行:

Slightly more formal or neutral.
Can be used for trips that are not purely for fun (business trips, study tours, etc.).
Often appears in written language or set phrases: 旅行社 (travel agency), 旅行团 (tour group).

In this sentence, we are talking about what college students do during a long summer vacation, which is typically leisure travel, so 旅游 is a natural and common choice.

Why is 或者 used here instead of 还是 for “or”?

或者 and 还是 both can mean “or”, but they’re used in different contexts:

或者 is used in statements:
- “A or B” when you are describing options in a declarative sentence.
- Example here: 旅游或者回老家看看亲戚 – “travel or go back home to see relatives.”
还是 is used in questions when you are asking someone to choose between options:
- 你想旅游还是回老家？ – “Do you want to travel or go back home?”

Because our sentence is a statement describing what students might do (not asking them a question), 或者 is the correct choice.

Why is it 回老家 and not 去老家? What does 回 add?

Both 去 and 回 involve movement, but they focus on different things:

去: to go (to some place), neutral direction.
回: to return/go back to a place that is considered “home” or your original place.

老家 usually refers to your hometown or the place where your family is from originally. For many people, that’s where they grew up, even if they now live/study elsewhere.

So:

回老家 implies “go back to one’s hometown (return there)”.
去老家 would sound more like “go to the hometown (as a destination)”, without the same personal “return” feeling.

Because college students are usually away from their hometown during the semester, 回老家 is the natural expression.

What exactly does 老家 mean? How is it different from 家 or 家乡?

These three are related but not identical:

家
- “Home” or “house” in a current, everyday sense.
- 回家 – “go home” (to where you live now).
老家
- Literally “old home”.
- Your hometown or your family’s original place; often where your parents or grandparents are from.
- Strong sense of origin and roots.
家乡
- “Hometown”, often slightly more literary or sentimental.
- Used similarly to 老家, but 老家 feels more colloquial and personal.

In this sentence, 回老家 suggests students going back to their hometown area (not just their current apartment or dorm).

Why is the verb 看 duplicated as 看看? What does that change in meaning?

Reduplicating a verb in Chinese (like 看 → 看看) often softens the tone, makes the action sound:

Casual
Light
Brief
Friendly

看看亲戚 implies:

“pay a visit to relatives”
“go and see them for a bit” rather than a serious or long visit.

Contrast:

看亲戚 – more neutral: “visit relatives”.
看看亲戚 – “drop by to see relatives / go visit them (casually, for a while).”

This kind of verb reduplication is very common in spoken and informal Chinese.

What does 亲戚 mean exactly? Does it refer to one relative or many?

亲戚 means “relatives” in a family sense (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.).

It’s a noun that can be singular or plural depending on context.
If you really want to specify one, you can use a measure word: 一个亲戚 – “a relative”.
In 看看亲戚, it is naturally understood as “relatives” in general: visit family members (more than one).

So 看看亲戚 is best interpreted as “visit (one’s) relatives” as a general activity.

Why is 大学生 the subject of 有时间? Could we say 他们有时间 instead?

大学生 = “college/university students” and is acting as the subject of the second clause:

大学生有时间… – “College students have time to…”

You could say 他们有时间… (“they have time…”) if 他们 clearly refers to college students mentioned just before in context. However:

Using 大学生 makes the sentence self-contained and clear even without prior context.
It highlights “college students” as a group, which is important information in this sentence.

So 大学生有时间… is natural, clear, and slightly more formal/explicit than 他们有时间… in isolation.

How is tense expressed here? How do we know this is talking about what students can do (generally) during summer vacation?

Chinese does not mark tense the same way English does (with -ed, will, etc.). Instead, it relies on:

Time words/context: 暑假 (summer vacation period) vs. 寒假 (winter vacation period).
General statements and habitual actions often have no extra tense markers.

Here:

暑假比寒假长 – a general fact: “(In general,) summer vacation is longer than winter vacation.”
大学生有时间旅游或者回老家看看亲戚 – a general habitual situation: “(In that period,) college students have time to travel or go back to visit relatives.”

So the whole sentence describes a typical situation every year, not a one-time event. The lack of specific time particles (like 了, 过) helps signal that it’s a general, timeless statement.