Degree complement

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Also known as: 程度补语 (chéngdù bǔyǔ) and complement of degree.

While most complements follow verbs, degree complements very often follow adjectives. They intensify or in some other way modify the degree of expression of the adjective (or verb).

Structure of Degree Complements

Degree complements can modify both verbs and adjectives, but remember, they always come after the word they modify.

Structure

Adj. / Verb. + 得 很

Adj. / Verb. + 得 不得了

  • 他 觉得 不 好吃 ，我 觉得 好吃 得 很 。

When to Use Degree Complements

Until now, you may have probably been getting by just fine modifying your verbs with adverbs. You can use 非常 to say "very" and all that. Great. But once you learn to use degree complements, a whole new layer of expressiveness is infused into your language. You will be able to express degree of verbs and adjectives with much more precision and color. But how do you know when to use the degree complement? Here are the main reasons to use it:

  1. To express how a verb happened or assess its quality
  2. To express to what extent (or degree) an adjective is true

For the first case, the most typical examples would be describing how well an action is done, or in asking how well an action is done:

  • 他 做 得 怎么样 ？The complement is used to ask "how he did it."
  • 他 做 得 很 差 。The complement tells us that "he did it poorly."

For the second case, instead of using the good old standby adverbs 很 and 非常, we can use all kinds of degree complements to spice up our adjective. In this case, the sample sentences below are going to revolve around how fat a cat is.

  • 猫 胖 得 很 。The complement tells us that "the cat is very fat."
  • 猫 胖 得 不得了 。The complement tells us that "the cat is terribly fat."
  • 猫 胖 死了 。The complement tells us that "the cat is fat to death" (but the cat didn't die; this is an exaggeration expressing the cat is very fat).

You may have noticed that some of those English translations are a little awkward. That's because the degree complement is a structure unique to Chinese which does not occur in English. Although "to death" works in same cases as a direct translation of the complement 死了, it's pretty unusual here. As for the other two translations, we would use similar ones if we had just used regular adverbs.

Below we will illustrate both cases further, starting with simple examples, and slowly building in complexity.

Common Degree Complements

Simple Degree Complements Following Verbs

The following sentences are are rather simple; they illustrate the various types of degree complements that can follow verbs, but without complicating the issue by also giving the verb an object.

  • 他 说 得 很 快 。 Tā shuō de hěn kuài.He speaks quickly.
  • 她 说 得 非常 好 。 Tā shuō de fēicháng hǎo.She speaks very well.
  • 他 解释 得 很 清楚 。 Tā jiěshì de hěn qīngchu.He understands clearly.
  • 她 长 得 不怎么样 。 Tā zhǎng de bù zěnmeyàng.She grew up to be unattractive.
  • 这个 人 跳 得 特别 高 。 Zhège rén tiào de tèbié gāo.This person jumps especially high.
  • 你 怎么 想 得 这么 复杂 ？ Nǐ zěnme xiǎng de zhème fùzá? How do you think so complexly?
  • 奶奶 走 得 很 慢 。 Nǎinai zǒu de hěn màn.Grandma walks slowly.
  • 她 做 得 好 不 好 ？ Tā zuò de hǎo bù hǎo? Did she do it well?
  • 你们 表现 得 不错 。 Nǐmen biǎoxiàn de bùcuò.You guys performed pretty well.

Verbs with Degree Complements and Objects

The next group of examples are very similar to the last group, but this time the verbs involved also have objects. Adding a verb to an object complicates a sentence in Mandarin, because a single verb cannot be followed by both an object and a complement. In order to express that kind of sentence, there are two approaches to take[1]:

Method #1: Repeat the verb, following it first with the object, and then with the complement. Example:

  • 你 说 中文 说 得 很 好 。 Nǐ shuō Zhōngwén shuō de hěn hǎo.You speak Chinese well. (lit. You speak Chinese speak it well.)

Method #2: Move the object in front of the verb. Example:

  • 你 中文 说 得 很 好 。Nǐ Zhōngwén shuō de hěn hǎo.You speak Chinese well. (lit. You Chinese speak well.)

Just to be completely clear, the following sentences are both incorrect:

  • 你 说 中文 很 好 。
  • 你 说 中文 得 很 好 。

Now let's revisit some of those sentences from above and throw in some objects (and possibly an extra verb here or there) to make things interesting:

  • 他 说 话 说 得 很 快 。 Tā shuō huà shuō de hěn kuài.He speaks words quickly.
  • 她 唱 歌 唱 得 非常 好 。 Tā chàng gē chàng de fēicháng hǎo.She sings very well.
  • 妈妈 做 菜 做 得 特别 好吃 。 Māma zuò cài zuò de tèbié hǎochī.Mother cooks very well.
  • 这个 人 跳 舞 跳 得 特别 烂 。 Zhège rén tiào wǔ tiào de tèbié làn.This person dances especially badly.

Note that for all the cases above, the verb is followed by a 得.

Also, one complicating factor for knowing when you're dealing with a verb plus an object is recognizing the object. This may sound obvious, but when dealing with separable verbs (like 说话), this may not be obvious at all.

Degree Complements Following Adjectives

The expression of "degree" following a verb is quite broad. A vast array of adjectives can appear in the degree complement following verbs, indicating degree and quality. When it comes to adjectives, however, expression of degree is often much more limited. The following are some of the more common degree complements which follow adjectives.

  • 这个 人 聪明 得 很 。 Zhège rén cōngming de hěn.This person is very intelligent.
  • 他 固执 得 不得了 。 Tā gùzhí de bùdéliǎo.He is extremely stubborn.
  • 那 个 人 坏 得 要命 。 Nà gè rén huài de yàomìng.That person is incredibly bad.
  • 痛 得 不 行 ！ Tòng de bùxíng! It hurts so badly!

Note that for all the cases above, the adjective is followed by a 得.

Degree Complements Following Adjectives (without a 得)

There are two especially common degree complements which can follow adjectives immediately and are not preceded by a 得:

  1. 极了 usually comes after adjectives with positive connotations (like 好), indicating an extremely high degree.
  2. 死了 usually comes after adjectives with negative connotations (like 坏, 忙, 累, 臭, 难看), and are commonly used to exaggerate the degree of how bad something is. In recent years, however, 死了 very frequently comes after adjectives with positive connotations (see below for more details).
  • 菜 的 味道 好 极了 。 Cài de wèidào hǎo jí le.This food's flavor is extremely good.
  • 这 件 衣服 漂亮 极了 。 Zhè jiàn yīfu piàoliang jí le.This piece of clothing is very beautiful.
  • 你 的 成绩 棒 极了 ！ Nǐ de chéngjì bàng jí le! Your grades are really good!
  • 他的 袜子 臭 死了 。 Tā de wàzi chòu sǐ le.His socks are so smelly.
  • 她 的 宝宝 可爱 死了 。 Tā de bǎobao kě'ài sǐ le.Her baby is so cute!

Please note that 死 can also act as a result complement. In the examples above, however, it merely indicates an extreme degree (no actual deaths involved!).

In the last example, you might be wondering why "死了" is used with "可爱." After all, cute is a good thing! Recently, "死了" has been used with positive adjectives as well, resulting in phrases like "可爱死了,""漂亮死了," and "开心死了."

References

  1. ↑ Example taken from Sinosplice.com: Syntactic Anguish of the Verb-Object-Modifier Variety

Sources and further reading

Books

Websites

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