行得通

[Zhende ma?]

Could anyone give me a good translation of 行得通. I saw it in a movie recently and still haven't been able to find out what it means.

[xiaoxiajenny]

worth doing maybe?

[Quest]

"it can be done", "it will work"

Literally: it can be passed through.

[yinyang]

In my opinion, Chinese teachers SHOULD ask and help the students to make a LIST of these kind of verbs WITH example sentences allready on the level of Beginners Chinese. There are hundreds or thousands of these kind of verbs (V1 de V2) which should be collected together on a list from the very beginning. And later on, the teachers should use those verbs regularly.

[HashiriKata]

It may be a good idea to make a list, but as you say, "There are hundreds or thousands of these kind of verbs (V1 de V2)", it may not be economical or even necessary to do so. 行得通 is in fact an example of a common construction often referred to as the "potential complement", and is simple enough to learn as a grammatical rule:

看得见/看不见 (can see/ can't see)

听得董/听不懂 (can understand/ can't understand)

记得住/记不住 (can remember/ can't remember)

坐得下/坐不下 (can sit down/ can't sit down)

and of course:

行得通/行不通 (can be done/ can't be done)

In this example, learners may have some problem with understanding 行得通, and this is because they're not familiar with this particular sense of 行, and not because the rule is difficult to understand.