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[latefordinner]

I was helping one of the Chinese teachers prepare her lesson this morning when this came up. She was teaching comparatives and superlatives, and had decided to review some numeracy skills, so she was teaching A is 4 times bigger than B, C is three times bigger than D, E is twice bigger than F, etc. I told her that "twice bigger than" sounds unnatural, it would be better to say "twice as big as". The lesson was easily adjusted (two times bigger than), but now I'm wondering if my ear is wrong. It isn't normal use where I come from, but is there anything wrong with "twice bigger than"? I can't think of a reason why there should be.
As an aside, how often do you question your ear? Is English only in the ear of the foreign teacher? (Or mathematics only in the mind of the mathematician?)

[foster]

I would say either "Twice as big as" or "Two times bigger than".

Questioning if something is right or not is common, especially when we are forced to listen to horrible mistakes day after day after day....I even find myself speaking in broken and crap English.

[arioch36]

You could say A is two times as big as B, A is two times bigger than
or A is twice as big as B

You couldn't say thrice bigger

Two is and adjective; and twice, thrice are adverbs.

So methinks me off the top of my head

[latefordinner]

Curiouser and curiouser. I posted the original query at lunch, this afternoon I had another run in with the same question. The second teacher showed me her dictionary (a Chinese edition, caveat teacher) and it had the same formulas, but also including something that stirred memory. "three times the size of, three times as big as, twice larger than". Arggggggh! I told them both (the original teacher already heeds me, it was more of a general staffroom warning) not to use this particular structure. When in doubt, KISS and avoid potential difficulties (and just plain bad grammar).

What I believe lies at the heart of this is an old (perhaps not archaic, but getting there) use, and more important the confusion of this use with other structures. Does this sound familiar? "It is twice as large again as the original..." I'm just guessing, but I suspect that this is where it comes from, and yes in its day this was grammatical, although it hasn't survived translation into Chinese and back again. Not much does.

Going back to my original query though, why should one structure be preferred and another not? Sorry Chris, I don't think that twice (and thrice) being adverbs is sufficient argument. The [<number>times] construction performs the same function as an adverb, of modifying an adjective, "bigger". (That is one of the functions of adverbs, no? Or should I cease and desist from using "very" to modify adjectives?) Why should the normal function of an adverb suddenly cease when modifying a comparative adjective?

Not that any of this matters. When in doubt, throw it out and avoid the whole mess. As indicated, I'd rather avoid any possible confusion and stick to what sounds right. They'll remember little enough without my makingthings worse.

[FGT]

Off the top of my head. "It's bigger than..." is not an absolute term so how can you double it?
Therefore, "it's twice bigger than..." is meaningless.

[Shaman]

[Roger]

"Twice as big" is not equal to "two times bigger";
the latter contains a comparative, so the end result would, in my mind, logically be: It's three times as big, namely two times as big added "bigger".

Incidentally, we can't say "two times smaller", because negative multiplied with negatives produces positive.