Expressing duration with "le"

After reading this primer on one of the many uses of 了(le), you will have gotten a good grasp on how to express the duration of something.

Structure

Saying how long you did something for in Chinese can seem tricky, as there is no preposition as in English. Instead it's all about word order:

Subject + Verb + 了 + Duration + Object

So 了 is placed after the verb (to indicate that the action is completed), followed by the duration. This is how you talk about the duration of completed actions.

Examples

• 他 在 北京 住 了 两 年。I lived in Beijing for two years.
• 我 上 了 半 个 小时 网。I went online for half an hour.
• 我 做 了 三 个 小时 作业。I did homework for three hours.

Structure

Note that the pattern above can be used to express the duration of completed actions which are no longer in progress, although strictly speaking, it's not entirely clear if the actions are still ongoing or not. To indicate that the actions are definitely completed, a time word may be inserted into the sentence to indicate that you're talking about an event in the past:

Subject + Time Word + Verb + 了 + Duration + Object

Examples

• 他 以前 在 北京 住 了 两 年。Before, I lived in Beijing for two years.
• 我 昨天 上 了 半 个 小时 网。Yesterday I went online for half an hour.
• 我 上个 星期 做 了 三 个 小时 作业。Last week I did three hours of homework.

To indicate that the action is definitely still in progress, use a slightly different pattern.

See also

• Expressing duration of inaction
• Uses of le

Sources and further reading

Books

• Integrated Chinese: Level 1, Part 2 (3rd ed) (pp. 118-9) →buy
• Chinese: An Essential Grammar, Second Edition (pp. 90-1) →buy