What does 不错 (bù​cuò) mean in Chinese?

In Chinese 不bù错cuò (bù​cuò) literally means “not bad”, however it has a more positive meaning than “not bad” in English and is closer in meaning “good”.

Consider if someone were to ask you about a movie you watched, in English you might ask

how was the movie?

not bad

Depending on your tone, responding with “not bad” could be slightly negative or neutral, that is the movie wasn’t terrible, but wasn’t great.

Now let’s contrast the English conversation with the Chinese equivalent, where depending on your tone 不bù错cuò (bù​cuò) is a neutral to positive response, but likely you would mean it was good movie:

电diàn影yǐng怎zěn么me样yàng？?
diàn​yǐng zěn​me​yàng?
how was the movie?

不bù错cuò
bù​cuò
Not bad (good)

不bù错cuò (bù​cuò) is similar to saying 很hěn好hǎo (hěn hǎo), although this would be more positive:

很hěn好hǎo
hěn hǎo
Very good (very good)

Were the person to have responded 还hái不bù错cuò (hái bù​cuò), it would have had a slightly negative response meaning, “it was okay”:

还hái不bù错cuò
hái bù​cuò
It was okay (okay / so-so depending on the tone)

Finally if the person responded 不bù好hǎo (bù​hǎo), this is a negative response:

不bù好hǎo
bù​hǎo
Not good (not good)

Finally let’s compare these phrases by degree:

Chinese	English
很hěn好hǎo hěn hǎo	very good
不bù错cuò bù​cuò	good (good to neutral depending on the tone)
还hái不bù错cuò hái bù​cuò	okay (neutral to slightly negative)
不bù好hǎo bù​hǎo	not good (bad)