My homework requires to fill in this blank.
A: 你看完这本书了没有?
B: 我看。。。一半。
I have 2 options that means "I finish reading half the book".
我看完一半。
我看到一半。
I am a bit confused because I think 完 involves the entire book. So, both are correct?
“我把这本书看完了。” means “I’ve finished this book”. The 完 here suggests the subject has finished reading the entire book.
So when you say “看完一半”, it means you’ve finished reading the “entire portion of the first half”, so to speak.
When you say ”看到一半”, it means you’ve read “half the book, up to the point you stopped”.
Note that 一半 doesn’t mean 二分之一. If you have a 200 page book, 读完一半 doesn’t literally mean you’ve read 100 pages of it. It just means you have read a substantial part of the story.
Both are correct.
In 我看完一半, the object of 看完 is 一半, so it means I finished reading half of the book.
In 我看到一半, 一半 is used for the position where have been finished reading, so it means I reached half of the book in reading.