Meaning of 到 dao4...

[Mike]

I’ve been saying - 很高兴见到你 - but I realise I don’t know what 到 means! Rather than ‘arrive’, is it used here to mean that something difficult has been done?

Thanks for your help.

[kdavid]

I'm far from being an expert, but I think I'm right when saying that dao4, with some verbs, can also be used to express that a action has been completed.

For example,

Wo3 ting1dao4 le. (I heard.)

Wo3 kan4bu2dao4 le. (I didn't see.)

[Xiaohua]

I also thought that you can just say Dao4, after you have completed something. Like if you were doing a job, and you finished, you just say dao4le. You don't always have to make a sentence. I hope I'm right on this.

Gao su wo. Wo shi dui ma?!=?

[semantic nuance]

Though I'm a native speaker of Chinese, I've never learned Chinese Grammar. I'll try to explain the sense, but mind you, it's never grammatical. It's just my native sense of the character. When 到 follows the verbs, it kind of suggests 'to reach some point, to some extent'.

[Altair]

Could it also be that 到 expresses that the object (i.e., 你) is special or is a special goal, as if saying: "I am happy to have come so far as to meet you."?

[Mike]

Thanks everyone.

Found there examples:

the train has arrived at the station - huo3che1 dao4 le zhan4

火车到了站

and:

I ate Peking Duck - wo3 chi1 le Bei3jing1 kao3ya1》

我吃了北京栲鸭

I managed to eat Peking Duck (difficult because lots of people waiting to eat the same thing) - wo3 chi1 dao4 le Bei3jing1 kao3ya1》

我吃到了北京栲鸭

[Koneko]

我吃到了北京栲[sic]鸭

Should be 烤 (Note with a "fire" radical)

Both 我吃到了北京烤鸭 and 我吃到北京烤鸭了 are grammatically correct.

But I think the latter is more commonly used.

[Mike]

Woops - Thanks Koneko - mixing up my 栲 mangroves with my roast 烤. Of course it must be fire 火 for roast