Breakdown of jīntiān jiāotōng zhème yōngjǐ, wǒ bù xiǎng kāichē.
Questions & Answers about jīntiān jiāotōng zhème yōngjǐ, wǒ bù xiǎng kāichē.
In Chinese, adjectives can directly function as predicates without using 是.
So:
- 今天交通这么拥挤
- literally: “Today traffic so crowded”
- understood as: “The traffic is so crowded today.”
If you added 是 here (✗ 今天交通是这么拥挤), it would sound unnatural.
是 is usually used to link nouns or pronouns, e.g.:
- 他是老师。 – He is a teacher.
- 今天是星期五。 – Today is Friday.
When an adjective like 拥挤 (crowded), 贵 (expensive), 冷 (cold) describes something, you normally don’t use 是 before it:
- 今天交通很拥挤。 – The traffic is very crowded today.
- 天气很冷。 – The weather is cold.
Here 这么 means “so / this (much) / like this” and expresses a strong degree of the adjective 拥挤:
- 这么拥挤 – “so crowded / this crowded”
Compared with 很:
- 很拥挤 – “very crowded” (a fairly neutral “very”)
- 这么拥挤 – “so crowded (like this, to this extent)”
Often implies surprise, complaint, or emphasis.
So:
- 今天交通这么拥挤 feels like: “The traffic is so crowded today!” (complaining tone).
- 今天交通很拥挤 is more neutral: “The traffic is very crowded today.”
Both are correct and common, but the nuance is slightly different:
今天的交通这么拥挤。
- Literally: “Today’s traffic is so crowded.”
- 的 explicitly marks “the traffic of today.”
- Feels a bit more like you’re treating 今天的交通 as a definite noun phrase.
今天交通这么拥挤。
- Literally: “Today, traffic is so crowded.”
- 今天 works like a time adverbial (“today”), and 交通这么拥挤 is the main statement.
- Very natural; slightly lighter and more colloquial in feel.
Both are fine in everyday speech. You’ll hear both forms often.
The comma (，) separates two clauses:
- 今天交通这么拥挤 – “The traffic is so crowded today,”
- 我不想开车 – “I don’t want to drive.”
Logical relation: reason → result.
You can split it into two sentences:
- 今天交通这么拥挤。 我不想开车。
This is grammatically fine but sounds a bit choppier.
With the comma, the sentence flows more naturally as a single thought: “Since traffic is so crowded today, I don’t want to drive.”
不想 means “do not want to / don’t feel like,” expressing an internal desire or lack of it.
- 我不想开车。 – “I don’t want to drive.”
(I don’t feel like it; I prefer not to.)
Differences:
我不开车。
- Literally: “I don’t drive / I’m not driving (by car).”
- Could describe a habit (“I don’t drive”) or a decision (“I’m not going to drive”), but it sounds more like a statement of fact than a feeling.
我不要开车。
- More like: “I don’t want to drive (don’t make me / I refuse to drive).”
- Can sound stronger or more like rejecting someone’s suggestion/command.
In this context, complaining about traffic, 不想 is the most natural: it focuses on willingness/interest rather than a flat refusal or statement of fact.
Literally, 开 can mean “open,” but it also has meanings like “turn on, start, operate.”
开车 is an established verb-object phrase that means “to drive (a vehicle)”, especially a car.
Some points:
- In modern Mandarin, 开车 by itself usually means “drive a car.”
- It can also refer more generally to operating a vehicle: 开火车 (drive a train), 开公交车 (drive a bus), but often in everyday context if someone says 我开车, we understand “I drive (a car).”
- It does not mean “to open the car” in normal usage; that would be something like 把车门打开 (“open the car door”) instead.
So in this sentence, 我不想开车 clearly means “I don’t want to drive (a car).”
Chinese relies heavily on time words and context instead of verb tense endings.
Here 今天 (“today”) sets the time frame. Without extra markers:
- 今天交通这么拥挤 is understood as a statement about today’s situation, normally referring to “today (now / in general today).”
If you want to make it explicitly future:
- 今天交通会这么拥挤，我不想开车。
“The traffic will be so crowded today; I don’t want to drive.”
If explicitly about earlier today:
- 今天交通这么拥挤了，我都不想开车了。
“The traffic has already been so crowded today; I don’t even want to drive.”
But with just 今天 and no aspect marker like 了, the default is a present/general statement about “today.”
Yes, you can, but the nuance changes slightly.
拥挤 – “crowded, packed, jammed (with people or things).”
- More general; can describe buses, streets, rooms, etc.
- 交通这么拥挤: the roads and traffic situation are very packed/crowded.
堵 / 堵车 – “blocked, jammed / traffic jam.”
- 堵车 is specifically about a traffic jam: cars are not moving or moving extremely slowly.
- Examples:
- 今天一直在堵车。 – There’s been a traffic jam all day.
- 路上太堵了。 – The roads are too jammed.
You could say:
- 今天交通这么拥挤，我不想开车。 (more about everything being crowded)
- 今天一直堵车，我不想开车。
“It’s been a traffic jam all day, I don’t want to drive.”
Both are natural; 堵车 focuses on blocked roads; 拥挤 sounds a bit more general/“crowded.”
Yes, that version is also very natural and commonly used:
- 我今天不想开车，因为交通这么拥挤。
- “I don’t want to drive today because the traffic is so crowded.”
Difference in feel:
今天交通这么拥挤，我不想开车。
- Starts with the reason, then gives the result.
- Feels like a comment/complaint first (“The traffic is so crowded today…”) then your reaction.
我今天不想开车，因为交通这么拥挤。
- Starts with what you want (result), then explains the reason with 因为.
- Slightly more explicit in linking cause and effect (“because”).
Both are correct and very natural in conversation.
The pattern is:
[Time word] + [Subject] + [Degree word] + [Adjective]
今天 + 交通 + 这么 + 拥挤
This “time first” structure is very common:
- 今天天气很好。 – Today the weather is very good.
- 明天我很忙。 – Tomorrow I am very busy.
You can say 交通今天这么拥挤, and it is grammatically okay. However:
- 今天交通这么拥挤 sounds more natural and standard.
- 交通今天这么拥挤 puts extra emphasis on 交通 first and can sound like a contrast (e.g. “As for traffic, today it’s so crowded”), depending on context.
For everyday speech, putting the time word first, like in the original sentence, is the safest and most common choice.
这么 mainly modifies adjectives or stative verbs to show degree:
- 这么忙 – so busy
- 这么贵 – so expensive
- 这么冷 – so cold
With verbs, 这么 can appear in a few patterns, usually with adjective-like meanings or as an adverb of manner:
- 你怎么这么说话？ – Why do you talk like this? / Why do you speak this way?
- 别这么做。 – Don’t do it like this.
But in the pattern 这么 + [word] that means “so (adjective)”, the [word] is typically an adjective or something functioning like one, as 拥挤 does here.
So in 这么拥挤, 这么 is a degree adverb modifying the adjective 拥挤.
Yes, you can omit 我 if the subject is clear from context:
- 今天交通这么拥挤，不想开车。
This would be understood as “(I) don’t want to drive” if it’s obvious you’re talking about yourself.
In Chinese, pronouns are often dropped when they’re contextually obvious, especially in spoken language. However:
- Keeping 我 (我不想开车) makes it explicitly about you and is perfectly natural.
- Dropping it sounds a bit more casual and conversational.
Both are fine; choose based on how explicit/formal you want to be.