Difference between 听得出来 and 听得懂

[betta.c]

Hi, just a quick question -- can someone tell me what the difference is between 听得出来 and 听得懂? The book I'm reading says they both mean 'to understand' / 'be able to understand'. 谢谢

[skylee]

You say 听得懂 when you understand what your hear. Like when you listen to the news on a Chinese radio station and understand it, or when someone comes up to you and ask you in Chinese how to get to the airport and you understand the question.

You use 听得出来 when you learn something more than just what you hear. Like when you hear someone sing and s/he has improved a lot so you say that you 听得出来 that s/he has improved a lot / must have practised a lot. Or when your friend recites the 300 Tang poems, you might not 听得懂 the poems but you should 听得出来 that s/he has put in a lot of effort to learn the poems.

Hope the above helps.

PS - The same applies to 看得懂 and 看得出來.

[Ruben von Zwack]

There is an example of "看不出來" (which is the same construction, just with "looking", right? And negative. But besides that, the same ) in this little dialogue here:

http://www.popupchin...tions-about-sex

(I hope you can see it)

From the context it's really self-explanatory!

And in the end they belabour a bit other expressions you can make with 出來 or 不出來

[魑魅魍魉Lol]

听得出来means be able to discover something by what you hear(it can be any sound)for example:

我不知道是谁打的电话，但是听得出来是个女人打的

I don't know who made the call,but i know that is a woman

我听得出来他很生气

听得懂means be able to understand

[yakeyglee]

I always think of the construction

[Verb] + [得/不] + 出來 + [...]

as whether or not you are capable of making a particular inference ([...]) on the basis of the verb. In your case, "听得出来..." means that on the basis of what you have heard, you can make a particular inference. In other words, "from what I hear, I can tell that...".

[OneEye]

Yes, the more-or-less equivalent phrase in English is "I can tell." It's just that in Chinese you specify which sense allows you to be able to tell. I've also seen 聞得出來 and 嚐得出來.

[tooironic]

听得出来 and 听得懂 have completely different meanings.

听得出来 is used when you can hear something in something, like you can tell, by hearing, that someone's language abilities have improved, or that you can tell, by hearing, that someone has the flu.

听得懂, on the other hand, is simply used when you can understand what is being said.