{"id":2235,"date":"2009-04-28T19:44:21","date_gmt":"2009-04-28T11:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/?p=2235"},"modified":"2015-12-15T15:35:18","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T07:35:18","slug":"le-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/2009\/le-redux\/","title":{"rendered":"le redux"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"coverNo, I’m not switching to French. I just wanted to get back to the matter of the particle le<\/em> (了), which was discussed previously in How to write verbs in Hanyu Pinyin<\/a>. Le<\/em> is so frequently used that it deserves its own section. <\/p>\n

Because today’s selection on this from Chinese Romanization: Pronunciation and Orthography<\/em> is just a few pages long, for this post I typed out all<\/em> of it — other than most Chinese characters, which can be seen in the PDF of the original: Tense-Marking Particles (le\/了)<\/a> (240 KB PDF).<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

9.2. Tense-Marking Particles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tense-marking particles have already been discussed in some detail in Chapter 5, Verbs. It was noted there that the tense markers zhe<\/em> (indicating an action in progress) and guo<\/em> (indicating a past experience) are always written as a single unit with the verb they follow. The particle le<\/em> 了 (indicating a completed action) is sometimes, but not always, written as a single unit with its verb. This is because le<\/em>, unlike zhe<\/em> and guo<\/em>, may be separated from its verb by other elements; and also because le itself can act as a mood particle as well as a tense particle. (For details on le<\/em> as a mood particle, see Section 3 of chapter 9.) <\/p>\n

This section is devoted to a discussion of orthography specifically as it relates to the tense particle le<\/em>. Three rules are laid out to help the student master the written forms of this particle.<\/p>\n

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  1. When le<\/em> occurs in the middle of a sentence or phrase, and immediately follows a verb or verb construction written as a single unit, le<\/em> is written together with that verb or verb construction:\n