The potential complement 得 versus 能
I have read you can use the potential complement 得 and 能 to express almost the same:
我做得完。
我能做完。
But does it also work for the negative form of the potential complement 不? Some text books says you can substitute 能 for 得 but you can't substitute 能 for 不. Is this correct?
Is this sentence wrong then?:
我不能做完。
Thanks in advance.
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Answers · 10
1
得≠ 能
In Chinese : Verb+得 ("V." before "得")
能 = can
So "我做得完。"and "我能做完。"two sentences means are similar ,but 得 is not 能。
不 + 能 = 不能(can't )
能 and 不能 are opposites.
If you say
"我能……" = "I can……"
"我不能……" = "I can't……"
Hope this helps. :-)
1
Hello! They are all correct, but it is more common to use 能 for a positive and a complement with 不 for a negative. For example, the most common expressions would be:
positive:我能做完。
negative:我做不完。
The following are also correct, but less common:
positive: 我做得完。
negative: 我不能做完。
In my experience, using "不能" is still used occasionally, but using 得 to express ability to do something is extremely rare.
1
Actually, they are the same sentence, just omit different character.
我(能)做得完 ---能 is omit here
我能做(得)完 ---得 is omit here
1
得:用在单音节动词的后面,表示可能:修~好、拿~动、爬~上去
so in this case, 得 almost = 能
the difference is: 得 = could 能 = can
得 contains a kind of emotion, so it's like "could".
For example, someone says "你做得完吗?" he says like this because he wants to tell u that u must finish, or he wants to tell u that if u cant he can help u. Something like this.
你能做完吗? --- 我能做完 --- 我不能做完
你做得完吗? --- 我做得完 --- 我做不完
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