A2
Potential complements — 聽不懂, 找得到
How Chinese says whether an action can reach its result by inserting 得 or 不 into a result complement, and why 我聽不懂 is the natural sentence where 我不能聽懂 is not.
Take a result complement — 聽懂, 找到, 吃完 — and slide 得 or 不 into the join. The sentence stops reporting what happened and starts saying whether it is achievable at all.
我聽不懂。
Wǒ tīng bu dǒng.
I can’t understand it.
你看得懂嗎？
Nǐ kàn de dǒng ma?
Can you read it?
這麼多菜，我吃不完。
Zhème duō cài, wǒ chī bu wán.
That’s far too much food — I’ll never finish it.
Both 得 and 不 are toneless here. The negative is far more common than the positive, and 聽不懂 is one of the most useful sentences a learner can own.
Why not 不能
能 is about circumstances — permission, opportunity, whether anything is stopping you. Whether an action can actually reach its result is a different question, and Chinese puts the answer inside the verb rather than in front of it.
我不能聽懂。
我聽不懂。
不能聽懂 says something is preventing you from understanding — that you are not allowed to, or have no chance to. What you mean is that the understanding does not arrive, which is what the complement expresses.
能 is right again as soon as circumstances really are the point: 我感冒了，說不了 話 and 這兒不能抽菸 are both about the situation.
The useful ones
- 聽得懂 / 聽不懂 — can or can’t follow it
- 看得懂 / 看不懂 — can or can’t read it
- 找得到 / 找不到 — can or can’t find it
- 吃得完 / 吃不完 — can or can’t finish it
- 買得起 / 買不起 — can or can’t afford it
- 來得及 / 來不及 — in time, or too late
買不起 and 來不及 are worth learning whole. 起 in this position means afford, and it appears nowhere else in that sense; 來不及 is what you say when the train has gone.
Asking
The A-not-A form puts both halves side by side, which is how these questions are usually asked.
你聽得懂聽不懂？
Nǐ tīng de dǒng tīng bu dǒng?
Can you follow it or not?
今天做得完嗎？
Jīntiān zuò de wán ma?
Can it be done today?
Not the same 得 as manner
得 also links a verb to a description of how it was done — 他說得很好, he speaks well. Same character, different structure: there the 得 is followed by a description, here by a result, and here it can be swapped for 不. They are worth keeping apart, and the giveaway is what comes after.