Descriptive complement

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

• Using objects with complements
• Adjectival complement "de budeliao"
• Adjectival complement "de hen"
• State complement

Sources and further reading

Books

• Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar (pp. 71-2) →buy
• Integrated Chinese: Level 1, Part 1 (pp. 179-80) →buy
• Integrated Chinese: Level 1, Part 2 (3rd ed) (pp. 172-3, 291) →buy
• Integrated Chinese: Level 2, Part 1 (pp. 302-4) →buy
• New Practical Chinese Reader 2 (新实用汉语课本2) (pp. 15-6) →buy
• Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide (pp. 191) →buy
• Boya Chinese Elementary Starter 1 (博雅汉语初经起步篇) (pp. 197) →buy
• Practicing HSK Grammar (语法精讲精炼) (pp. 125) →buy
• Contemporary Chinese 2 (当代中文2) (pp. 63) →buy
• New Practical Chinese Reader 3 (新实用汉语课本3) (pp. 99) →buy

HSK4