Difference between revisions of "Descriptive complement"
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==Sound familiar?==
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Chinese [[complement]]s are not an exact science. You may notice that the above uses of descriptive complements overlap a bit with [[degree complement]]s. Yes, they do. The main difference is that descriptive complements can get way more... ''descriptive'', whereas degree complements are much more concerned with ''degree''. The overlap tends to happen when the complements are extremely simple.
  
 
==See also==
 
==See also==

Revision as of 08:18, 19 September 2016

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In this article, we take a look at how we use 得 (de) to help describe an action. It is one of the characters that often gets confused with 的 and 地, since they could be pronounced as a neutral tone "de."

Structure

Descriptive complements are used to describe the action of a verb. This would be done with an adverb in English.

Verb / Adjective + 得 + Description

Examples

  • 你 说 得 很 好。Nǐ shuō de hěn hǎo.You speak very well.
  • 他 做 得 很 不 好。Tā zuò de hěn bù hǎo.He did it poorly.
  • 她的 诗 写 得 还不错。Tā de shī xiě de hái bùcuò.She writes good poems.
  • 这篇 文章 翻译 得 马马虎虎。Zhè piān wénzhāng fānyì de mǎmǎ hǔhǔ.This essay wasn't translated that well.

Sound familiar?

Chinese complements are not an exact science. You may notice that the above uses of descriptive complements overlap a bit with degree complements. Yes, they do. The main difference is that descriptive complements can get way more... descriptive, whereas degree complements are much more concerned with degree. The overlap tends to happen when the complements are extremely simple.

See also

Sources and further reading

Books

HSK4
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