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Mythic Mandarin

了 (le): meaning and stroke order

了 (le) means (completed action marker), (modal particle indicating change of state, situation now).

了

Simplified
了
Traditional
了, 瞭
Pinyin
le · liǎo · liào

Stroke order of 了

了

  • le (completed action marker); (modal particle indicating change of state, situation now)
  • liǎo to finish; (used with 得[de2] or 不[bu4] after a verb to express (im)possibility, as in 忘不了[wang4 bu5 liao3] "cannot forget")
  • liǎo (of eyes) bright; clear-sighted
  • 2 strokes
  • Traditional form: 瞭

Stroke by stroke

Meaning of 了

  1. le
    • (completed action marker)
    • (modal particle indicating change of state, situation now)
    • (modal particle intensifying preceding clause)
  2. liǎo Traditional 瞭
    • (of eyes) bright
    • clear-sighted
    • to understand clearly
  3. liǎo
    • to finish
    • (used with 得[de2] or 不[bu4] after a verb to express (im)possibility, as in 忘不了[wang4 bu5 liao3] "cannot forget")
    • (literary) (usually followed by a negative such as 無|无[wu2] or 不[bu4]) completely (not); entirely (not); (not) in the least
    • to understand clearly (variant of 瞭|了[liao3])
  4. liào Traditional 瞭
    • unofficial variant of 瞭[liao4]

Radical and structure

了
Radical 亅 (Kangxi radical 6) · 2 strokes · 乛 on top, 亅 below

Radicals and stroke counts: Unicode Unihan database. Structure: the shapes a character is written with (BabelStone IDS), not necessarily parts that carry meaning or sound.

Words with 了

  • 了结 liǎo jié to settle; to finish
  • 为了 wèi le for; for the purpose of; in order to
  • 算了 suàn le let it be; let it pass
  • 了不起 liǎo bu qǐ amazing; terrific
  • 受不了 shòu bù liǎo unbearable; unable to endure
  • 除了 chú le apart from; besides; in addition to (used to exclude, as in 除了他，誰也沒來|除了他，谁也没来[chu2 le5 ta1 , shei2 ye3 mei2 lai2] "apart from him, nobody came", or to include, as in 除了英語，他也會法語|除了英语，他也会法语[chu2 le5 Ying1 yu3 , ta1 ye3 hui4 Fa3 yu3] "in addition to English, he also knows French"); (used to introduce one of two habitual alternatives in the pattern 除了[chu2 le5] + A + 就是[jiu4 shi4] + B, "either A or B")

了 in our stories

Preview version — Chinese review in progress.

  • 保罗坐了十二个小时的飞机。

    Bǎoluó zuò le shí'èr gè xiǎoshí de fēijī

    Paul flew for twelve hours.

    From the story At the airport HSK 2

  • 星期五晚上，周亮到了一家宾馆。

    xīngqīwǔ wǎnshang Zhōu Liàng dào le yì jiā bīnguǎn

    On Friday evening Zhou Liang arrived at a hotel.

    From the story Next Friday HSK 2

  • 医生问：“你昨天吃了什么？”

    yīshēng wèn nǐ zuótiān chī le shénme

    The doctor asks, "What did you eat yesterday?"

    From the story Ice-cold watermelon HSK 2

Stories using 了

Dictionary data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Stroke data: Hanzi Writer data, derived from Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License). Animation: Hanzi Writer (MIT licence). Radicals and stroke counts: Unicode Unihan (Unicode License v3).