What you will be able to do
- Tell a degree complement from a resultative one, and negate each in its own way.
- Attach the common result morphemes: 完, 好, 到, 见, 懂, 错, 住, 会.
- Add a direction to a verb of motion, and place an object inside the compound.
- Build the potential form by inserting 得 or 不: 听得懂 / 听不懂.
Chinese words in this text can be activated to show a dictionary gloss.
Four things that can follow a verb
1. How well: verb + + comment
de links the verb to a judgement of how the action went. The judgement is an ordinary adjective phrase, so it keeps its .
- 。 Tā pǎo de hěn kuài.
- 。 Nǐ xiě de hěn hǎo.
- 。 Tā lái de hěn zǎo.
The negative goes on the comment: , never . And if the verb has an object, cannot reach past it — repeat the verb, , or front the object, .
2. Whether it worked: the resultative complement
A second morpheme welds onto the verb and states the outcome. The two together behave as one word.
- wán finished: chī wán, kàn wán, zuò wán
- hǎo done properly: zuò hǎo, zhǔnbèi hǎo
- dào attained: zhǎo dào, mǎi dào, shōu dào
- jiàn perceived: kàn jiàn, tīng jiàn
- dǒng understood: tīng dǒng, kàn dǒng
- cuò wrong: xiě cuò, zǒu cuò, mǎi cuò
- zhù held fast: jì zhù, ná zhù
- huì learned: xué huì
The negative is , not : 。 Wǒ méi tīng dǒng. 。 Wǒ méi zhǎo dào. The reason is that a result belongs to the finished world, and negates intention or general truth while negates something that did not happen.
The distinction matters more than it looks. means you listened; means you understood. means you looked; means you found it. The bare verb in Chinese does not imply success.
3. Which way: the directional complement
lái towards the speaker and qù away from the speaker attach to a verb of motion, alone or after another direction.
- jìn lái come in; chū qù go out; huí lái come back; shàng qù go up
- Compounded: zǒu jìn lái walk in, ná chū qù take out, pǎo huí lái run back
Where does an object go? Between the direction and / if it is a place, and either there or at the very end otherwise.
- 。 Tā zǒu jìn jiàoshì lái le.
- 。 Tā ná chū yì běn shū lái. — 。 is equally normal.
4. Whether it can be done: the potential form
Slide or into the join between the verb and its complement.
- tīng de dǒng — can understand; tīng bu dǒng — cannot
- kàn de jiàn / kàn bu jiàn
- mǎi de dào / mǎi bu dào — obtainable or not
- chī de wán / chī bu wán
The here is light and unstressed, closer to a neutral tone than to bù. This is the ordinary way to say you cannot do something with a verb that has a result: a Chinese speaker says far more often than .
The four negatives on one line
- Degree:
- Result:
- Direction:
- Potential:
If you can produce those four without hesitating, you have the system. And one last trap worth naming: and are different sentences. With it is a degree complement — speaks clearly. Without it, the same string is the potential form — is able to make it clear.
How to work through it
The bare verb promises nothingread
Read section two, then say each pair aloud and state the difference: 我听了 / 我听懂了; 我找了 / 我找到了; 我看了 / 我看完了. In each pair the second sentence claims something the first does not.
Eight result morphemesvocabulary
These eight are not free words in this use; they are pieces that weld onto a verb. Learn each inside two compounds — 吃完 and 看完, 找到 and 买到 — so that the shape, not the character, is what you store.
Four negatives, four sentencessentence
Negate one sentence four ways, one per family: he does not run fast; I did not understand; he did not come in; I cannot understand. Say them in a block until the choice of 不 or 没 stops being a decision.
Result, direction, possibilityquiz
Sixteen items. Six add the right result morpheme to a bare verb; four place an object inside a directional compound; four build the potential form; two separate 说得清楚 from 说得很清楚.
Report on a difficult dayspeaking
Tell a two-minute story in which four things went wrong, and use one complement from each family: something you could not understand, something you failed to find, something you took the wrong way, and something you did badly. End with one thing that did work.