Potential complements
Potential complements can be positive or negative. What this means is fairly intuitive - potential complements can be used to express that something can happen or that it can't.
The structure is:
Verb + 得 / 不 + [complement]
Here [complement] is the second part of the potential complement after 得 (positive) or 不 (negative). So if the verb can be adjective, 得 is used. If the verb can not be adjective, 不 is used.
Some examples:
- 汉字 他 写 得 好。
- 汉字 我 写 不 好。
- 中文 你 说 得 很 好听。
- 我的 房间 这么 乱 － 我 干 不 干净。
Note that the potential complement and degree complement can often appear to be the same; the difference can usually be seen from context.
