"Separable Verbs" In Chinese

In my last lesson, Duolingo introduced me to the concept of "separable verbs", some of which seemed to correspond to gerunds in English. (A gerund is a verb that is used as a noun, such as the word "swimming" in "Swimming is a good exercise".)

[Aside:

I first came across the concept of separable verbs when learning German, and it was weird as hell.

As Sherlock Holmes said in "A Scandal in Bohemia", the German is very uncourteous to his verbs.

E.g., the verb "stehen" means "to stand", and the verb "aufstehen" means "to stand up".

However, to say "I stand up" you cannot simply say "ich aufstehe". You have to say "ich stehe auf".

The two parts of the verb need to be separated.

Similarly, "fahren" means "to travel", and "losfahren" means "to take off".

Wir fahren in zwei Minuten los. ("We're going to take off in two minutes.")

Wir sind schon losgefahren. ("We've already taken off.")

The parts "auf" and "stehen" in the verb "aufstehen" are separable, as are the parts "los" and "fahren" in "losfahren".

End Aside.]

After looking more closely into it, I realised that what Duolingo refers to as "separable verbs" in Chinese is just a misnomer. It's nothing at all like the separable verbs in German. It's just that some verbs in Chinese are loosely translated into English as intransitive verbs in certain contexts, but the literal equivalent actually holds a transitive verb and its object together in one word. It's not a single verb with two separable parts. It's a verb+object pair. In more complex sentences, we're required to separate the two parts, which could come as a surprise if we've been looking at the compound word as an intransitive verb. That's all there is to it.

Check out these examples:

1. 去 游泳 qù yóuyǒng (loosely translated as "go swimming"): Here, 游泳 yóuyǒng ("swimming") may appear like an intransitive verb, but it's not. It literally means "to swim (a) swim".

2. 去 跑步 qù pǎobù (loosely translated as "go running"): Here, 跑步 pǎobù ("running") may appear like an intransitive verb, but it literally means "to run steps".

3. 去 骑马 qù qímǎ (loosely translated as "go horseriding"): Again, 骑马 qímǎ literally means "to ride (a) horse".

The verbs for other activities, such as "play soccer" and "play basketball", quite clearly indicate even in their loose translations that they're made up of a transitive verb and an object, so you wouldn't be taken by surprise when they get separated in certain constructions. Still, it's worth understanding that the literal equivalents of these phrases mean something slightly different.

4. 踢 足球 tī zúqiú ("play soccer"): [This actually translates literally to "kick foot ball", because that's exactly what the three characters mean.]

5. 打 篮球 dǎ lánqiú ("play basketball"): [This translates literally to "hit basket ball".]

See how the verbs that look like a single word get separated.

1a. 我 游泳 wǒ yóuyǒng ("I swim", literally "I swim (a) swim"). Here, the transitive verb 游 yóu and its object 泳 yǒng stick together as if they're one word, and could be mistaken for an intransitive verb.

1b. 我 昨天 下午 游了 一个 小时 的 泳 wǒ zuótiān xiàwǔ yóule yīgè xiǎoshí de yǒng ("I swam for an hour yesterday afternoon", literally "I yesterday afternoon swam one hour's swim"). Here, the transitive verb and its object get separated, which would come as a surprise if you got used to thinking of 游泳 yóuyǒng as a single word.

Another example is running, where you don't just "run" (intransitive verb), but "run steps" (transitive verb + object).

2a. 昨天 我 去了 跑步 zuótiān wǒ qùle pǎobù ("I went for a run yesterday", literally "Yesterday I went (to) run steps". Again, the transitive verb 跑 pǎo and its object 步 bù stick together as if they're one word, an intransitive verb.

2b. 早上 我 跑了 三十分钟 的 步 zǎoshang wǒ pǎole sānshí fēnzhōng de bù ("I ran for 30 minutes this morning", literally "Morning I ran thirty minutes' steps"). Now they get separated.

A third example is horseriding, where you "ride (a) horse" (transitive verb + object).

3a. 我 妈妈 很 喜欢 骑马 wǒ māmā hěn xǐhuān qímǎ ("My mother likes horseriding", literally "My mother likes (to) ride horses")

3b. 我 妈妈 昨天 骑了 一个 小时 的 马 wǒ māmā zuótiān qíle yīgè xiǎoshí de mǎ ("My mother rode a horse for an hour yesterday", literally "My mother yesterday rode one hour's horse")

[Aside:

Note a couple of unrelated aspects to the last sentence:

1. If you look closely, you will see that the word 骑 qí ("ride") itself contains the ideograph of 马 mǎ ("horse") as the leftmost glyph within it.

2. This sentence has two words that sound similar except for tone, and are written somewhat similarly. The character 妈 mā in "mother" has the glyph 女 nǚ for "woman" inside it, along with the glyph 马 that hints at its pronunciation (i.e., some variation of "ma").

妈 mā ("mother") and 马 mǎ ("horse") are so confusingly similar in the way they're written, and their pronunciation only differs in tone, yet they're so very different in what they mean! Get the tone wrong, and your prospective mother-in-law could clip you on the ear with her handbag.

To complicate things further, you could add the no-tone question particle 吗 ma to the mix, as in:

你 妈妈 喜欢 骑马 吗？nǐ māmā xǐhuān qímǎ ma? ("Does your mother like riding horses?")

End Aside.]

OK, so what Duolingo called "separable verbs" aren't that at all. They're verb+object pairs that go together in certain contexts and may be loosely translated into English as a single intransitive verb, and so having to separate them in certain situations is quite understandable and shouldn't be confusing at all.

However, there is another complication that I saw about these verb+object pairs. Certain sentences require them to be separated in a rather strange way. The transitive verb gets repeated after the compound verb in certain cases. Take a look.

1c. 我 游泳 游 得 不错 wǒ yóuyǒng yóu dé bùcuò ("I swim well", literally "I swim (a) swim swim (adverb) not bad")

2c. 他 跑步 跑 得 很 快 tā pǎobù pǎo dé hěn kuài ("He runs fast", literally "He runs (a) step runs (adverb) very fast")

3c. 我 妈妈 骑马 骑 得 很好 wǒ māmā qímǎ qí dé hěn hǎo (My mother rides horses very well", literally "My mother rides horse rides (adverb) very well"

4c. 我 的 哥哥 打 篮球 打 得 不错 wǒ de gēgē dǎ lánqiú dǎ dé bùcuò ("My older brother plays basketball well", literally "My brother hits basket ball hits (adverb) not bad")

5c. 谁 踢 足球 踢 得 最 好？ shéi tī zúqiú tī dé zuì hǎo? ("Who plays soccer best?", literally "Who kicks foot ball kicks (adverb) most good?")

At the moment, this last structure is confusing me a fair bit. I need a bit more experience here before I wrap my head around when and how this is used.

Update 22/08/2021: As Duolingo's lessons progress, I see many more such examples of these so-called separable verbs, and I'm now able to construct more complex sentences by splitting them correctly.

Check these out. (BTW, I made up these sentences myself and verified them through Google Translate.)

6. 打扮 dǎbàn loosely means "to dress up", which sounds like an intransitive verb. But it translates literally to "hit pretend", a combination of a transitive verb and an object. (It also suggests what Chinese culture thinks of the practice of dressing up!)

6a. 他 请了 我 他 的 派对。我 需要 打扮。tā qǐngle wǒ tā de pàiduì. wǒ xūyào dǎbàn. ("He invited me to his party. I need to dress up.", literally "I need to hit pretend.")

6b. 我 会 打 下午 扮 wǒ huì dǎ xiàwǔ bàn. ("I will dress up in the afternoon", literally "I will hit afternoon pretend")

7. 感冒 gǎnmào is loosely translated to "cold", as in the illness. But the literal translation is "sense risk", which doesn't seem to make much sense, unless catching a cold is a way of sensing risk (of pneumonia?).

7a. 我 感冒 了。wǒ gǎnmào le. ("I have a cold", literally, "I 'sense-risk'-ed")

7b. 昨天 我 感 了 冒。zuótiān wǒ gǎnle mào. ("I caught a cold yesterday", literally, "Yesterday, I sense-d risk")

8. 休息 xiūxí is translated as "to rest", another intransitive verb. But it literally means "to rest (one's) breath", i.e., another transitive verb + object.

8a. 我 要 休息。wǒ yào xiūxí. ("I want to rest", literally, "I want to rest breath")

8b. 我 会 休 一个 小时 的 息。Wǒ huì xiū yīgè xiǎoshí de xī. ("I will rest for an hour", literally "I will rest an hour's breath")

And now, the exceptions

Interestingly, it appears some Chinese compound words can't be separated, much like the German "untrennbar" (non-separable) verbs, e.g., entdecken (to discover), verstehen (to understand), zerstören (to destroy).

9. When I came across the word 发烧 fāshāo ("to have a fever"), and realised that the literal translation was "to emit burn", I thought I could separate this into two words like I did the others. But Google Translate slapped me down.

9a. 我 发烧 wǒ fāshāo ("I have a fever", literally "I emit burn")

9b. 我 发 从 昨天 晚上 烧 wǒ fā cóng zuótiān wǎnshàng shāo (This sentence construction is wrong! It translates to "I have burned from last night", which isn't what I was trying to express.)

9c. 我 从 昨天 晚上 发烧 wǒ cóng zuótiān wǎnshàng fāshāo ("I have a fever from last night", literally "I from last evening emit burn") is the correct construction. Note that the compound verb is not to be separated.