赶不上
gǎn bù shàng · HSK 6
can't catch up with
🏃 赶 catch + 不 not + 上 up = can't catch up
Literally 'chase-not-up': 赶 means chase or rush, 不 negates, and 上 marks reaching/achieving. The 不...上 pattern signals failure to attain — so chasing without reaching = can't catch up or keep up.
赶 — walk radical 走 + 旱 (gan, phonetic)
赶 combines 走 'to walk/run' as the meaning component with 旱 as the phonetic clue for the sound gǎn. The walking radical points to its core meanings: to hurry, to chase, or to drive (animals) along. The simplified form replaced the older 趕, which used 倝 as phonetic.
不 — single pictograph; bird flying upward
Originally a pictograph in oracle bone script, traditionally interpreted as a bird flying up toward the sky and unable to come down, suggesting negation or refusal. Over time it became the standard negation word in Chinese, used before verbs and adjectives to mean 'not'.
上 — horizontal line above a baseline
上 is an indicative character (指事): a short stroke placed above a longer reference line shows the concept of 'above' or 'up'. The earliest oracle-bone forms used two horizontal lines for this; the modern shape added a vertical stroke for clarity. The core meaning of 'upper, above, to ascend' has stayed stable for millennia.