Difference between 看作 and 看成 Recently， I've been listening to a chinese podcast and in the podcast I heard someone say "中国人常常把谦虚看作一种美德“。  I have also heard the term “叫作” within the podcast - I'm wondering, is there a clear difference between this and 看成／ 教程？
看作, 看成


be seen as


叫作


be said as




The explanation is only the literal interpretation. Despite of the difference described above, both of them carry similar underlying meanings:


be comprehended as
be classified as


We can dissect the sentence "中国人常常把谦虚看作一种美德" as follows:


中国人

Chinese people

常常

Usually (Always)

把

(This one will be discussed later)

谦虚

Humility

看作

Be seen as

一种

A kind of

美德

Virtue





Without reordering the phrases, you can come up with the following sentence:

Chinese people always (*) humility be seen as a kind of virtue.


I bet you know the meaning of this sentence. Though it sounds a bit weird.

Note


In short, the presence of "把" indicates the use of "passive voice" in the above sentence (Humility is always being comprehended as a virtue by Chinese people.).
If you are interested in the detailed explanation of the usage of "把", this page should give you a concrete understanding on this topic.




p.s. "教程" means course/tutorial.