Potential complement "bu liao"

不了 (bùliǎo) is a very common potential complement that expresses you "can't do something." Note that the "了" here, when acting as part of a complement, is read as "liǎo" and never "le."

Structure

The potential complement 不了

It is used like this:

Verb + 不了

Examples

• 我 �去 不了 了。 Wǒ qù bùliǎo le.I can't go.

See also

• Potential complement "bu xia"
• Potential complement "bu dong"
• Positive and negative potential complements

Sources and further reading

Books

• Integrated Chinese: Level 1, Part 2 (1st ed) (p. 203)

Property "Is related to character" (as page type) with input value "不�了" contains invalid characters or is incomplete and therefore can cause unexpected results during a query or annotation process.

HSK4