Practise the thinking. Keep the judgement.
Chinese resultative and potential complements
Original Chinese study material with English explanations. Simplified Chinese with pinyin; beginner, intermediate and advanced are editorial difficulty labels.
A result complement follows a verb: 看懂 means read and understand; 写完 means finish writing. In a potential complement, 得 or 不 appears between the verb and result to express possibility.
我看懂了这句话。
Wǒ kàn dǒng le zhè jù huà.
I understood this sentence by reading it.
字太小，我看不清。
Zì tài xiǎo, wǒ kàn bu qīng.
The characters are too small; I cannot see them clearly.
看不懂 describes inability to understand; 没看懂 reports not having understood. They answer different questions.
Try it
Which says “I cannot understand it by reading”?
- 我看不懂。
- 我看懂了。
- 我想看。
Answer and explanation
我看不懂。. 不 between 看 and 懂 forms a negative potential complement.