Definitions
(particle)
(completed action marker); (modal particle indicating change of state)
(verb)
to finish; to achieve; to understand clearly
(verb)
potential complement (to a verb), indicating whether the action is possible
About
Originating as a pictograph of a child with crossed arms to convey the idea of completion, the character "了" gradually adopted its minimalistic two-stroke form while transitioning from a lexical verb meaning "to finish" to a versatile grammatical particle that signals completed actions or new situations in modern Chinese. Its structural simplicity belies a complex semantic journey from concrete finality to abstract syntactic marker, and it remains graphically unchanged in both traditional and simplified orthographies, illustrating how written forms can stabilize even as their linguistic roles expand and shift.
Etymology Hide
Example Sentences Hide
我吃了午饭。
我不去学校了。
天气变冷了。
他昨天去了北京。
她买了一件新衣服。
我了解这个问题。
我已经完成了作业。
他把杯子打破了。