# 有的是病得医治



## chajadan

I'm a beginner. I'm reading a story about a guy who goes around healing people and they comment on him having a lot of opportunity:

有的是病得医治

My question is, what is the meaning/purpose of 得 here? At first, I want to make it /de/, to show possibility, as in, there are plenty of illnesses around that could be healed, but I keep reading that the potential complement only comes after a verb, so that wouldn't be here. I'm guessing it must mean /dei3/ "have to" or "needing", so there's plenty of illnesses that need to get healed, but I also see that it could mean proper or suitable as /de2/, as in, there are plenty of illnesses around ripe for / suitable for / that call for healing. Is this very clear to natives?

谢谢

--charlie


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## stellari

note that the interpretation of "possibility" only applies to 得 that follows a verb. In addition, 得 is only understood as "suitable" in a few fixed combinations, and it is usually followed by a noun. The 得 in your sentence matches neither of the cases. Thus it should be understood as "requires" and pronounced as "dei3".

Also I must say that the sentence, although perfectly comrehensible, is highly colloquial. I won't recommend such a structure to a beginner.


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## abcde1996

Well, I don't know if there's something wrong with my Chinese, since I can't understand this short sentence either. Maybe I'm just too stupid.
I think you'd better provide some context to help me understand this sentence.
And it seems that /dei3/ is the best choice, though I don't quite understand this sentence.


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## YangMuye

滕近辉, 灵历集光: 滕序:


> 他曾看过数以万计蒙恩者给他写的信，有的是病得医治，有的是灵性复兴，有的是信主重生，有的是胜过罪恶，他在日记中摘录了一部分，极为宝贵。


得(de2) or 得到 is a passive marker: the disease was healed.


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## learntheworld

chajadan said:


> I'm reading a story about a guy who goes around healing people and they comment on him having a lot of opportunity:
> 
> 有的是病得医治


If this is your case, then 得 should be pronounced as /dei3/. The whole sentence means that there are  a whole lot of illnesses needing to be treated.


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## wuhuahua

有的是病得医治，得děi 3 tone，it means must or need ，adv. Be able to ,adj. at ease


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## zhg

Provided that link is the source, I find YangMuye's guess more plausible, and I agree with him that here得is  (de2) meaning 得到.


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## chajadan

Thank you for the many replies. To zhg, yes, that was the correct source for the full context. I must remember to provide a bigger context in the future, I had assumed what I supplied was sufficient. The final conclusion (I seem to accept and agree with YangMuye and zhg) is not one I would have reached on my own. It that a common use of 得到? To shorten it like that?


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## BODYholic

chajadan said:


> 有的是病得医治



By any chance, could it be 有的病是得医治?


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## chajadan

That is correct from the original, and I don't believe it's a typo there since it's used repeatedly and wouldn't always allow such a swap, that I can tell.


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## stellari

> 他曾看过数以万计蒙恩者给他写的信，有的是病得医治，有的是灵性复兴，有的是信主重生，有的是胜过罪恶，他在日记中摘录了一部分，极为宝贵。



If that is the context, then forget about whatever I said in #2. This paragraph is basically a list of different cases where people benefit from whatever religion (presumably christianity due to the style of writing). In this parallel structure, 有的是 most likely means 'some are ... ', rather than 'there are a lot of' (although it is also possible to interpret it as a pun here). Thus, 得 simply means 'to get' in this context and is pronounced 'de2', and 病得医治 means "disease gets cured".

Note that this is not a common usage. When Bible was translated into Chinese, people deliberately used a somewhat archaic style of Chinese to mimic the feel of the original English text. In modern usage, people are far more likely to say 得到 rather than 得.

Actually, in my first attempt to answer this question, I have already thought about the possibility that it may come from a Christian writing style. However, since you seem to be pretty sure that it is about 'a lot of opportunity', I just gave the most possible interpretation along that line. I guess that is also why learntheworld and wuhuahua gave similar answers.

So next time you ask a question, PLEASE do everyone a favor -- provide the original context, rather than your own interpretation thereof.


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## chajadan

Thank you stellari for further information, regarding 有的是 most likely being (有的)是, as in "some are".

I understand the need for enough context -- however, I am ~such~ a beginner in Chinese that in this case I had no clue at all that more context was at all pertinent, let alone necessary. I've studied languages for years, and have been fairly active in the spanish forums of word reference, so I know the importance of context in general. I certainly will be more cautious in the future while I'm am still so new at this language.


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## xiaolijie

chajadan said:


> I understand the need for enough context -- however, I am ~such~ a beginner in Chinese that in this case I had no clue at all that more context was at all pertinent, let alone necessary.[/COLOR]


I understand what you're saying, chajadan. In some cases it's not easy to know how much of the context to give, unless you already understand the sentence. A similar case is here: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2803744


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## zhg

Regarding the question "is that a common usage of 得到，I'd say no it's not. The reason why it's shortened here is simply that in a parallel structure it's better to keep all parts symmetrical ,ie with same characters which are 4 in our case, to ryhme or to whatsoever ,therefore the author has shortened得到。


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