Mandarin · Chapter 8 · Lesson 4 · Grammar primer
Resultative complements
Grammar for HSK 3.
The short version
The 了 (le) goes after the result, not inside it
看见 (kàn jiàn), 吃完 (chī wán) and 找到 (zhǎo dào) fuse into single units, so treat verb-plus-result as one longer verb: 我吃完了 (wǒ chī wán le), never 我吃了完 (wǒ chī le wán). Negate the whole unit with 没 (méi) and the 了 (le) drops: 我没看见他 (wǒ méi kàn jiàn tā). 不 (bù) negates willingness and habit, which is not what a failed outcome is.
我吃完了。 Wǒ chī wán le.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
Read the full article · 8 min readPractice
Practise this lesson
10-question session
One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 24 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.
Lesson 4 of 16 in this chapter