"As ... as possible" in Mandarin Chinese

It’s not immediately obvious how to say things like “as soon as possible” and “as fast as possible” in Mandarin, as there isn’t a direct translation.

The way to express it is actually to say “the more … the better”. Pragmatically this is the same, and the structure is easy to use:

This is the structure for “as … as possible” in Mandarin. You just say 越, an adjective and then 越好.

Some examples:

越快越好 Yuè kuài yuè hǎo As soon as possible

越慢越好 Yuè màn yuè hǎo As slowly as possible

越贵越好 Yuè guì yuè hǎo As expensive as possible

越便宜越好 Yuè piányi yuè hǎo As cheap as possible

越多越好 Yuè duō yuè hǎo As much as possible

This is a very general structure - pretty much any adjective you like can go in the slot. There _is _another structure that you can use with some specific adjectives, and it’s even simpler still!

The structure is:

And it’s as simple as that! Normally this is just used with the adjectives 早 and 快, giving 尽早 and 尽快, and the meanings are pretty much the same:

尽早 Jǐnzǎo As soon as possible

尽快 Jǐnkuài As quickly as possible

Useful links:

• A Guide to Proper Usage of Spoken Chinese (Tian)
• Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar (Ross, Ma)
• Translation Challenge: “as…as…” - Carlgene