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A jukuu.com example sentence for 人民币 is:

我把十块美元换成人民币
I change ten dollars into Renminbi
(Wǒ bǎ shí kuài měiyuán huàn chéng rénmínbì)

Question: What role does 成 play in the sentence 我把十块美元换成人民币?

Everything else seems to translate naturally:

  • 我 (wǒ) = I
  • 把 (bǎ) = take
  • 十 (shí) = ten
  • 块 (kuài) = pieces of
  • 美元 (měiyuán) = US dollars
  • 换 (huàn) = exchange
  • 成 (chéng) = ???
  • 人民币 (rénmínbì) = a formal way of saying Chinese yuan (Chinese money).

Dict.cn translates 成 to "succeed", etc., so it could mean something along the lines of how 了 is used. I'm not clear on this.

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  • 成 into,for (change $10 into RMB, exchange $10 for RMB) ), look up examples for 换 in any dictionary, there will be ones with 2nd verb 成
    – user6065
    Sep 27, 2017 at 1:32
  • it seems 把十块美元换成人民币 could be considered an example of a pivotal sentence 兼语句，except that it also is a 把-sentence， and therefore the object has been moved in front of the 1st verb 换, １０块美元 is the object of verb 换 and at the same time the subject of the 2nd verb 成，other examples of pivotal sentences:他请我去，我们让他来我们这儿，老师叫我们念课文
    – user6065
    Sep 27, 2017 at 2:10
  • 李蓓，你以前有没有在武汉呆过啊。
    – jett chen
    Nov 7, 2022 at 9:51

8 Answers 8

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16

成 (into) is the result complement of the verb 换(change)

换 = change

换成 = change into

兑换 = exchange

兑换成 = exchange into

  • 兑换 mostly refers to 'currency exchange'

  • 换 can refer to exchange between anything.

In "我把十块美元换成人民币" (I exchanged $10 USD into RMB), '换' is obviously short for '兑换'. You can even replace '换' with '兑' (convert) and write: "我把十块美元兑成人民币" (I converted $10 USD into RMB)and the meaning would still be the same.

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4
  • 我把十块美元换成人民币（Wǒ bǎ shí kuài měiyuán huàn chéng rén mín bì）
  • 我（Wǒ） =I
  • 把 （bǎ）=take
  • 十块（shí kuài）=ten pieces of
  • 美元（měi yuán）=US dollar
  • 换成（huàn chéng）=change into
  • 人民币（rén mín bì）=RMB
  • 我把十块美元换成人民币 I change ten dollars into RMB.
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2

'我把十块美元换成人民币'的‘成’is 'become' in my opinion.
我换了十块美元成人民币。

I changed ten dollars into Renminbi

Just because we don't say it like that in English, the 成 gets lost in translation. I don't think it is correct to equate 成 with 'to' or 'into'. Try and translate those words as 成 in other sentences!

变成 is another example. It gets translated as 'change into', 'turns to'

由于没有消耗卡路里，你吃的所有东西都会变成脂肪。

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2
  • Well, 变成 means 'change into/to'. While 变 means 'change', and 成 means ???
    – dan
    Sep 27, 2017 at 13:19
  • I don't agree that 变成 means 'change into/to'. That is just how it gets translated, because in English we don't say this the same way as the Chinese. IMO it is 'change become' when you change, you become something else. Chinese correctly states this. 但是，这句话可能更好为‘我换了十块美元的人民币。’
    – Pedroski
    Sep 28, 2017 at 22:37
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See zdic:

  1. 变为：长～。变～。

It means "(change) into" here.

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As far as I know, in English "exchange" is barely a verb that is applied onto two objects directly. You need a preposition like "for", and 成 here has exactly the same use as "to", so 美元换成人民币 is like change dollar "to" yuan.

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1

I am a native Mandarin speaker. In my point of view, "成" means transferred to or treated as/like. There is no accurate translation in English. We usually add "成" after a verb to indicate "transferred to" or "treated as/like".

For example, 

你快吃成猪了 -> you eat too much and you look like a pig now
天气太冷，我们大家都被冻成冰了 -> It's too cold and we are frozen like a piece of ice.

Just my two cents.

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0

In this context, literally, 成 means become. 换成 means change and become, in English, change into.

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0

approval.成→into,change into 变成

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