A common mistake in spoken Chinese : The complement of result with “能”
A common mistake in spoken Chinese : The complement of result with “能”
汉语口语常见错误:当结果补语遇到“能”
If there is some mistake all my students will make, it must be these sentence:
我不能听见你。(我听不见你。correct)
我不能看见你。(我看不见你。correct)
我不能说好汉语。(我说不好汉语correct)
你听我?(你能听到我么?correct)
你看我?(你能看到我么?correct)
Why did they make the same mistake? I think about that for a long time. In my opinion that may because of the method the teacher used to teach and the meaning of character are not totally the same as English words.
Many teacher like to use some formula for sentence pattern to make it easy for foreign students. But no matter how precise the formulate it is there will be an exception.
So here I want to talk about such kind of question: the complementary of result with “能”。
1 结果补语 the complement of result
A complementary element following a verb predicate, indicating the result of an action.
Verb-complementary of result:
看见
听见
看完
写完
学会
听懂
记住
站住
吃完
喝完
The first character is a verb it shows the main meaning,the action, the second character is also a verb, but it is used to indicating the result of the first verb.
Sentences with complement of result.
我看见你了。--negative form 1 我看不见你。/ negative form 2 我没看见你。
我听见你说话了。--negative form 1我听不见你说话。/ negative form 2我没听见你说话。
我看完书了。--negative form 1我看不完书。/ negative form 2我没看完书。
我写完作业了。--negative form 1我写不完作业。 / negative form 2我没写完作业。
我学会汉语了。--negative form 1我学不会汉语。/ negative form 2我没学会汉语。
我听懂你的话了。--negative form 1 我听不懂你的话。/ negative form 2我没听懂你说的话
我记住这个汉字了。--negative form 1 我记不住这个汉字。/ negative form 2我没记住这个汉字。
我吃完饭了。--negative form 我吃不完饭。/ negative form 2我没吃完饭。
Negative form 1 means I can not do something because some reason.
Negative form 2 focus on the result.
For example:
negative form 1 我看不见你。If you speak loudly I can here.
negative form 2 我没看见你。I just see nothing.
我学不会汉语。It means I can not learn Chinese, maybe it is because you don’t have the gift.
我没学会汉语。It means I did not master it, maybe you have learned for one day or one year. The result is you did not know Chinese by now. But if you learn it for another year or from other teacher. The result will be different.