Lesson 17: Potential Complement

last revised June 3, 2003

• 生詞太多了, 我記不住. There are too many new words, I can't remember them all.
• 我聽不懂他的話. I can't understand what he says.
• 他的聲音太小, 你聽得見聽不見? His voice is so soft, can you hear him?
• 我聽得見. I can hear him.

Potential complements are placed after verbs to indicate the potential (or lack thereof) to do something. In the negative form, the action described in the main verb takes place, but the result described in the complement cannot be achieved.

If there is a simple object, it can follow the complement. If the object is long or complicated, it is usually preposed (put at the beginning of the sentence). This pattern looks somewhat similar to other verbal complements you have learned. Most of the same words used in resultative complements and some in directional complements can be used in this pattern as well, but the structure of the sentence is a little different. Contrast these examples:

English doesn't have an equivalent structure to the potential complement, so the English translations will vary from the structure of the Chinese. A good strategy is to learn some of the combinations as idiomatic expressions. See the partial list below:

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If you can't read the Chinese characters, install Microsoft traditional Chinese font, then set browser to view character set "Big 5 (traditional Chinese)."

This page created by Mary Jacob