B1
起来, 下去 and 出来 when nothing moves
How Chinese directional complements work figuratively — 起来 for starting and for judging, 下去 for carrying on, 出来 for working something out — and why 说下来 is not 说下去.
The directional complements keep their shape and lose their literal direction. Three of them do most of this work, and each has settled into a meaning worth learning on its own.
起来 — it starts, or on consideration
Attached to an action, 起来 says it began.
他笑起来了。
Tā xiào qǐlai le.
He started laughing.
外面下起雨来了。
Wàimiàn xiàqǐ yǔ lai le.
It’s started raining outside.
Note the object sitting inside the complement in the second one — 下起 · 雨 · 来 — which is the same splitting the literal ones do.
Attached to a verb of perception or judgement, it means when you do that: on hearing it, on looking at it, on thinking about it.
听起来不错。
Tīng qǐlai búcuò.
Sounds good.
她看起来很累。
Tā kànqǐlai hěn lèi.
She looks tired.
这件事说起来容易，做起来难。
Zhè jiàn shì shuō qǐlai róngyì, zuò qǐlai nán.
It’s easy to say and hard to do.
想起来 is the one you will use most: to remember, in the sense of something surfacing rather than something retained.
下去 — carry on
Continuation of something already under way.
说下去。
Shuō xiàqu.
Go on.
我学不下去了。
Wǒ xué bu xiàqu le.
I can’t keep studying.
That second one is a potential complement built on a figurative direction, which is where these two ideas meet.
继续说下来。
继续说下去。
下来 is coming down, or the stretch from then until now — 这几年下来, over these few years. Carrying on from here is 下去. The pair is not interchangeable in the figurative sense the way it nearly is in the literal one.
出来 — it emerges, you work it out
Something becomes apparent, or you detect it.
我听出来了。
Wǒ tīng chūlai le.
I can tell, from the sound of it.
你看出来他不高兴了吗？
Nǐ kàn chūlai tā bù gāoxìng le ma?
Could you tell he was upset?
The sense is of something coming out of hiding. 看出来 is not see, it is make out — which is why it so often turns up with 了 and with a whole clause behind it.
Why bother learning them as a set
Because they are productive. Once 起来 means begin, it means that on any action verb you meet, and you can understand 忙起来 or 唱起来 without having been taught either. Learning the three complements is cheaper than learning the hundreds of compounds they generate.