Degree complement

Degree complements, also known as "complements of degree" in English, are 程度补语 (literally, "degree complement") in Chinese. While most complements follow verbs, degree complements very often follow adjectives. They intensify or in some other way modify the degree of expression of the adjective (or verb).

Structure of degree complements

Degree complements can modify both verbs and adjectives, but remember, they always come after the word they modify. The chart below illustrates the structural pattern you should expect to see with degree complements. Note that the structural particle 得 is used in many cases, but not in every case.

Word Preceding Complement	Particle	Degree Complement	Example
Verb	得	很好	说 得 很好
	得	不 好	说 得 不 好
	得	不 好	说 得 不 好
	得	不 好	说 得 不 好
Adjective	得	很	好 得 很
	得	不得了	坏 得 不得了
		极了	好 极了
		死了	累 死了

When to use degree complements

Until now, you may have probably been getting by just fine modifying your verbs with adverbs. You can use 非常 to say "very" and all that. Great. But once you learn to use degree complements, a whole new layer of expressiveness is infused into your language. You will be able to express degree of verbs and adjectives with much more precision and color. But how do you know when to use the degree complement? Here are the main reasons to use it:

1. To express how a verb happened or assess its quality
2. To express to extent degree an adjective is true

For the first case, the most typical examples would be describing how well an action is done, or in asking how well an action is done:

• 他 做 得 很 好 。 The complement tells us that "he did it well."
• 他 做 得 很 差 。 The complement tells us that "he did it poorly."
• 他 做 得 怎么样 ？ The complement is used to ask "how he did it."

For the second case, instead of using the good old standby adverbs 很 and 非常, we can use all kinds of degree complements to spice up our adjective. In this case, the sample sentences below are going to revolve around how fat a cat is.

• 猫 胖 死了 。 The complement tells us that "the cat is fat to death" (but the cat didn't die; this is an exaggeration).
• 猫 胖 得 很 。 The complement tells us that "the cat is very fat."
• 猫 胖 得 不得了 。 The complement tells us that "the cat is terribly fat."

You may have noticed that those translations are a little awkward. That's because the degree complement is a structure unique to Chinese which does not occur in English. Although "to death" works in same cases as a direct translation of the complement 死了, it's pretty awkward here. As for the other two translations, we would use similar ones if we had just used regular adverbs.

Below we will illustrate both cases further, starting with simple examples, and slowly building in complexity.

Sources and further reading

• Grammar book: 外国人实用汉语语法(中英文对照) (pp. 284-292)
• Oxford University website: Complement of degree 得
• Yale University website: The Complement Of Degree