Complement

Complements are not a form of flattery (those are compliments); they're a special type of structure found in modern Mandarin and have no exact counterpart in English. The Chinese word for complement is 补语 (bǔyǔ).

Complements are a bit hard to define, but you'll generally find them following verbs (or sometimes adjectives). They can be as short as one character, or practically as long as a sentence. According to A Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners, complements "show the duration, quantity, degree, result, direction or possibility of an action; or to illustrate the state, number, degree of a thing". As is often the case, plentiful examples will help clarify!

Summary of complement types

Below you'll find all the major complement types, with representative examples of each. Click through for a more detailed explanation and more examples.

Main Complement Types, with Examples

Type of Complement	Verb	Complement	English
Result complement	做	完	to finish doing
	买	到	to buy (successfully)
	计划	好	to plan (properly)
	说	清楚	to speak clearly
Potential complement	去	不了	cannot go
	去	得了	can go
	听	不懂	to (listen but) not understand
	看	得懂	to be able to read and understand
	吃	得完	can finish eating
Direction complement	放	下	to put down
	走	上去	to walk up
	飞	回来	to fly back (here)
	跑	过来	to run over (here)
Quantity complement	去	一次	to go once
	工作	十个小时	to work for 10 hours
Degree complement	说	得很好	to speak (very) well
	好*	极了	great
Location complement	住	在北京	to live in Beijing
	来	到中国	to come to China

• OK, this one is an adjective, not a verb!

Result complement

Result complement

Potential complement

Potential complement

Direction complement

Direction complement

(Compound direction complements)

Quantity complement

Quantity complement

Degree complement

Degree complement

Location complement

Location complement

Sources and further reading

• Grammar book: 外国人实用汉语语法(中英文对照) (pp. 242 - 243, pp. 271 - 329)