different verbforms (e.g. kàn/kànjian)

[jakethehuman]

Hi, im new here. And also to the chinese language, which is beautiful.  

 

While learning with Anki, I've noticed that there are sometimes verbs with another syllable at the end. They seem to have the same meaning. For example kàn/kànjiàn, shuo1/shuo1huà, zhù/zhùzai.
Is there any difference in those? Or is kàn for example just an abbreviation?

Im sorry for the mixing of tones in numbers and ´ `... i dont know how to write the 1. and 3. tone. :3

[DavyJonesLocker]

They are not abbreviations. Verbs are fundamentally different in Chinese than english, adding the complement changes the meaning, 

 

买到了， 买完了， 买中了， 买过了 all have different meanings. They indicate the outcome of the action

 

See here https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Complement

 

The website is generally very good at explaining  grammar in layman's terms

[ZC]

(Disclaimer: I’m not an expert at all)

 

Well, the answer is first of all no they are not just abbreviations, I’m sure that in your study you noticed a difference between 看 and 看见 butthey often have similar meanings. In the case of 看见 there is a verb compliment 见 (which means something like information was received) on the end. So compounds like, for example, 听见 also exist.

 

in the case of 说话 it’s a different word with a similar meaning. While 说 means something like you made the sound of words with your mouth, 说话 is more about conversing or speaking with someone, it indicates like there was discussion or something similar. It’s a little bit like the difference between to say and to talk.

 

住在 is not in itself a single word I think, it’s two, 住 is to reside. 在 is to be at a place.  Like DJ said verbs work differently and there are a ton of what look to English speakers like compound words but actually just mean something else! Hope this helps!!

 

[imron]

1 hour ago, jakethehuman said:

i dont know how to write the 1. and 3. tone. :3

https://www.pinyinput.net/

[Publius]

看 <= look but not necessarily see

Therefore, 看 as an imperative is used in situations like "Look, mom, no hands!" and 看见 is used in "I see what you're doing."

[AaronUK]

14 hours ago, ZC said:

Well, the answer is first of all no they are not just abbreviations, I’m sure that in your study you noticed a difference between 看 and 看见 butthey often have similar meanings. In the case of 看见 there is a verb compliment 见 (which means something like information was received) on the end. So compounds like, for example, 听见 also exist.

 

 

Very good response, I often think of different complements to verbs as sometimes being a way to express different tenses similar to English language, but also the result of the action.

 

Such as to to look 看, be looking 看着,  saw 看到了 have seen before 看过 can be expressed by different complements. You can also use a negative form for when the result did not occur, such as to look but not see 看不到 (cant see).  I think this is first introduced in some HSK2 level material. I remember the time studying this as it was the first time I really started to enjoy Chinese learning, you get to express a lot with words you already know just from some small modifiers.

 

I found a video on youtube that looks at some different examples of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4jjfXBgYWM

@jakethehuman I found some other examples on this old website from Oxford http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/Grammar exercises/RVC.htm

[jakethehuman]

Thanks for all the replies!

 

That is a cool way of giving a sentence more meaning. I will look further into it later.

 

@imron "https://www.pinyinput.net/ "  I'll try that! ^^