Sentence: "I am a half-African American, half-Chinese girl "...need hyphens?

Answer 1

The sentence is better like the following:
I am an African-Chinese girl or, I am blessed with an African and Chinese heritage.
(Doesn't that sound better?)

Answer 2

Not according to my handy dandy "Elements of Grammar" book. Where you do need the hyphen is African-American and Chinese-American so you would write the sentence like this: I am half African-American and half Chinese-American. Even if your parents weren't American citizens you are which is why you would say Chinese-American.

Answer 3

You should use the hyphenated American usage, but not for half (unless it was a verb past tense like half-witted, or half-assed, etc)

Sentence: "I am a half African-American, half Chinese girl."

Or "I am a half African-American and Chinese girl."

The first one is better though.

The term hyphenated American is an epithet from the late 20th century to refer to Americans who consider themselves of a distinct cultural origin other than the United States, and who claim to hold allegiance to both. The first term typically indicates a region of origin or ancestry, which is generally (but not always) paired with "American" by a hyphen, such as African-American, Irish-American, German-American, Italian-American and Japanese-American.

Answer 4

The hyphen should go between African-American only, in your sentence. You could technically hyphenate half-American or half-Chinese, but that would become an awkward looking sentence, and since it is not necessary, don't do it.

btw, berhun1: your comma goes after 'girl' not after 'or'
poet: sorry, but fractions are commonly hyphenated, such as 'two-thirds', 'two hundred forty-six' etc. The only rule for hypenated fractions is that there is only one hyphen per fraction. But still, girlontop, don't do it for the reasons I mentioned.

Answer 5

Half African-American, half Chinese girl. Type it into a word processor with spellcheck and it will tell you for sure.

Answer 6

ya u need the hyphens there right where u got em.

Answer 7

yes hyphen every word

Answer 8

I don't think so. But I'm not an english major.

Answer 9

You must be beautiful.

Answer 10

no, it shouldn't have hyphens.