Verb + 得 + Adverb + Adjective
Reach for this when you want to describe HOW well or how badly someone does something — 'he sings very well,' 'she runs really fast.' The 得 connects the verb to an evaluation of the action. This is the basic degree-complement structure and one of the most common spoken patterns in Chinese. Use it for skills, performance, and habitual quality: how someone cooks, drives, speaks, writes, dances.
Structure
[VERB] 得 [ADV] [ADJ]
[VERB] de [ADV] [ADJ]
How to Think About It
得 here is a tiny bridge that says 'and now here's the verdict on that verb.' Everything BEFORE 得 is the action; everything AFTER 得 evaluates it. That's why the adjective doesn't go before the verb the way English does ('sings well'); it has to follow 得. And the adverb (很, 非常, 真) almost always shows up between 得 and the adjective — a bare 唱得好 sounds incomplete in the same way 'sings good' sounds clipped in English.
Examples
他跑得很快。
Tā pǎo de hěn kuài.
He runs very fast.
她中文说得非常好。
Tā Zhōngwén shuō de fēicháng hǎo.
She speaks Chinese extremely well.
你今天来得真早。
Nǐ jīntiān lái de zhēn zǎo.
You came really early today.
Common Mistake
When the verb has an object (唱歌, 说中文), learners try to put the object after 得. Native speakers either drop the object the second time or repeat the verb: 'sing-song sing-DE-well.' Skipping the verb repetition with an object present is the classic B1 mistake.
他唱歌得很好。
他唱歌唱得很好。
Don't Confuse With
Verb + 得 + Result Complement
Same 得, different second half: a resultative phrase, not a quality adjective. '吃得饱' (eat until full) vs '吃得很快' (eats fast). The 得 + resultative answers 'with what result?'; 得 + adverb + adjective answers 'in what manner?'
很 + Adjective + 地 + Verb
Adverbial modifier BEFORE the verb — '他很高兴地走了' (he left happily). Use 地 + verb for the manner of starting/doing the action; use 得 + adjective for the quality of the action as evaluated afterward.
Verb + 不 + Adjective
The negative of this pattern uses 得 too: '唱得不好' = 'sings badly.' The 不 goes after 得, not before the verb. Don't write 不唱得好 — that's ungrammatical.
Practice
他唱歌唱 ___ 很好。
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得
她跑得 ___ 快。
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很
Put in order: [中文 / 说 / 得 / 她 / 很 / 好]
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她中文说得很好。
Translate to Chinese: 'He writes very neatly.'
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他写字写得很漂亮。
Write one sentence using Verb + 得 + 很/非常 + Adj to describe how well someone you know does something.
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Example answer: 我妈妈做菜做得非常好吃。 (My mom cooks really deliciously.)
Hear It in Real Episodes
This pattern appears in 1 Fluentide episode: