The “Basic Variety” of interlanguage is a second language (L2) acquisition phenomenon that indicates L2 learning challenges and limited language attainment. Recent empirical studies have demonstrated that this learnability issue is closely related to three psycholinguistic factors: salience, contingency, and learned attention. However, most of these studies are based on English as a second language (ESL), and few explore a non-western language, such as Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). This article will use a set of CFL data from two existing corpus studies on Chinese verb complement constructions of manner and state (VCM/S) to investigate construction learning difficulties by comparing the use of CVM/S constructions between native speakers and L2 learners and by analyzing L2 error patterns across four language proficiency levels. This learnability study is intended to (1) deepen our understanding of the roles of salience, contingency, and learned attention in construction learning in terms of identifiable construction development patterns, and (2) to further pinpoint underlying mechanisms of learnability issues impacted by three psycholinguistic factors.