Advanced "le" with complements

You may have learned that 了 (le) follows immediately after a verb to indicate completion (AKA 了1), and comes at the end of a sentence when it indicates a "change of state" (AKA 了2). But what about when a complement comes after the verb? Does that count as part of the verb or not? The answer, as it often is with 了, is "it's complicated."

Two Possible Structures

Both of these structures are possible, but the second one has fewer acceptable use cases.

Subj. + Verb + Complement + 了

Subj. + Verb + 了 + Complement

The former is more common in informal speech, while the latter is more common in written language and is only used with certain types of complements.

了 After the Complement

This is fine for most verb-complement structures. No real limits here.

Some examples：

• 买 到 了 。
• 做 起来 了 。
• 吃 完 了 。
• 穿 好 了 。
• 用 没 了 。
• 穿 破 了 。
• 卖 光 了 。
• 装 满 了 。
• 用 没 了 。

了 After a Verb with a Complement

While you do NOT do this with result complements (e.g. 完, 好, etc.), it is a very common structure with direction complements in written Chinese.

Some examples：

• 站 了 起来 。
• 走 了 上去 。
• 吃 了 起来 。
• 跑 了 过来 。

Sources and further reading

Books

HSK5