Jessica今天看到Teddy
Why is it 看到 instead of 看？
他請爸爸關上門。
Why is it 關上門 instead of 關門？
Why and how exactly should I use these words?
哈囉，大家好！ 哈啰，大家好！ Hello everyone!
I’m Grace
Today we’re going to talk about
15 Chinese verbs with directional complements.
In English, there are a lot of phrasal verbs like
“to come up with”, “to look over” or “to clean up”.
Small words are added to the main verbs to express a more specific meaning.
Chinese, similarly, often adds a complement to the main verb
to add more information
For example, 「做」is “to do (something)”
and 「做到」means “to do and achieve (something)”,
so here adding the complement “到” gives you more information.
Let’s learn more about Chinese verbs with directional complements.
The first group of verbs I want to introduce are
the verbs that have “上” as its complement.
上 has the meaning of moving from a lower to a higher place.
When it’s used as a complement,
it has additional meanings extended from its original definition.
The first one is “愛上 to fall in love with”
Here “上” indicates that
the action “愛 to love” starts and continues from there,
so 愛上 means “to fall in love with” (start loving someone or something)
For example,
The second one is “跟上 to keep up with”
For example, you can say
Another example,
The third one is “關上 to close (to completion)”
關 means “to close”
“上” here indicates that the action is from open to close,
and it emphasizes the completion of the action.
So for instance,
The next one is similar, it’s "閉上 to shut (to completion)"
For example, you can say
“閉上眼睛 to shut one’s eyes” or “閉上嘴巴 to shut one’s mouth”
So… in Chinese if you want to tell someone to shut up,
I know, this is not the kindest thing to say,
but I’m just showing you in case you need it someday.
So “shut your mouth” in Chinese is “閉上你的嘴”
or you can just say “閉嘴！”
Next, 用上
用 means “to use”, and 用上 means “(get the chance) to use”
For instance,
Now let’s move on to the second group of verbs.
They use “到” as their complement.
“到” means “to arrive”
and it can be used as a complement added after a verb to express that
an action has attained a certain result such as perceiving/contacting...etc.
For example “看到” means “to see (and successfully perceive)”
For instance you can say,
Here even though the person looked,
she didn’t successfully see the dancing person, so she said “沒看到”
The next one is “聽到”
聽 means “to hear” and “聽到” means “to hear (and successfully perceive)”
For example,
Next, 猜到
猜 is to guess. Like, you can say “猜猜看 take a guess”
And 猜到 is "to guess (and get it right)”
For instance,
The fourth one in this group is 拿到.
拿到 means “to get (and successfully obtain)”
For example, you can say
The last one in this group is “做到”
“做” is “to do”. 做到 means “to do (and achieve)”
An example would be,
The final group of verbs today has “出” as their complement.
“出” means “from the inside to the outside”
When used as a complement, one of the usages of 出 is to express that
because of an action, something hidden is now revealed
or that something is now produced.
For example,
The first one is “看出 to see (and be able to tell or recognize)”
Through “看 to see” something hidden or unclear becomes obvious.
For instance,
The next one is “找出 to look for (and find)”
The third one in this group is “想出 to come up with”
“想” is to think
and “想出” is to think and generate some ideas,
so it means “to come up with”
For example,
Next, “做出 to do, to make (emphasizing the production of the action)”
For instance,
The final one for today is
“說出 to say, to tell (emphasizing the production of the action)”
Okay, that’s all for today’s video!
If you liked this type of video
and would like to learn more about Verb + complement phrases in Chinese,
please let me know in the comments!
And if you’d like to support me to make more content,
please visit my ko-fi page.
The link is in the description below.
Your support really means a lot to me!
Last but not least, if you want to learn some daily Mandarin expressions,
check out my Instagram @gracemandarin
那我們就下次見囉！拜拜！ 那我们就下次见啰！拜拜！ I’ll see you next time! Bye!