Change of state with "le"
- Also known as: sentence 了 and modal 了.
了 (le) has a lot of uses. One of the most common is to indicate change of state. That is, that the situation has changed; things were not this way before. In English, this is often expressed with "now" in positive sentences and with "any more" in negative sentences.
When used in this way, 了 is placed at the end of the sentence to mark that the whole statement describes a new situation.
Some examples:
- 他 会 开车 了。"He can now drive." (he couldn't before)
- 我 不 喝酒 了。"I don't drink any more." (but I used to)
- 你 知道 了。"Now you know. (you didn't before)"
So if the English translation would make sense with "now" or "any more", chances are it needs a 了 sticking on the end in Chinese.
Sources and further reading
Books
- Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar (pp. 238 - 299)
Websites
- East Asia Student: 了 grammar: four kinds of 了 in Mandarin
