I’m a native Mandarin speaker and I don’t even know most of these rules because they just so instinctive to me! This video is making me appreciate the power of language and how language changes the way we think.
说老师，真的谢谢! For me, grasping the concept of 了 I’m completed actions only made sense when I learned French. For example, in French, when talking about the past, there’s usually the completed/perfect past and the imperfect past. The French imperfect past (e.g. Je voulais devenir medecin) is clearer than it’s English counterpart. In English, the translation is: I “wanted” to become a doctor. It’s not really obvious in English whether the verb, wanted, was completed back then. You would need to say things like, “I had wanted”. TLDR: It’s easy to learn another language such as Mandarin Chinese when you can draw on other languages for reference points.
@@martinphipps2 No, Karl was addressing the video creator by calling her Teacher Shuo; the name goes before the title "Teacher" in Chinese, unlike in English when you put the last name after Mr./M(r)s.
You are a very good Chinese teacher, of you are not already working at a really good institution, you should consider applying, because i can assure you most my Chinese teachers i ever had in person or online could never explain 了 as clearly as you did. I know you said the sole credit is not yours, but you took the time to research a way those who dont speak fluent mandarin could understand.
The exact reason why she can use her own method to expain it so well is that she does not work for any institution and does not have to adjust to any one. She is a creator of her own success , not someone else's :)
I am not a native English speaker myself but for some reason when I am listening to you I dont feel any language barrier. I feel like you are talking so clear and understandable. Maybe it is because you are a great teacher :):P Good work keep it up !
Yo. Same. I'm also japanese learning chinese. People keep telling me that my japanese is helping me learn chinese. Tbh it really doesn't help to know japanese.
As a native speaker,I think it's very hard to explain"le" to foreigners,but you do it.I think"le"is more than a past tense,but I can't say its other meanings until I watched this video.你太厉害“了”。
My Chinese is still too basic to understand all of the words you used here, but I think I still totally understood the rules of when to use "le" - thank you for explaining so well!
2 years later, I found your channel and wow you couldn't have explained Le 了 better. With that, I came to realize in one Le 了 use case, we Filipinos have a similar particle in our sentences as well (in this case it's "Na"), which similarly indicates a change of state. 我不爱你'了' Wo Bú Aì Ni 'Le' "Di 'na' kita mahal" (base sentence: "Di kita mahal", 我不爱你, I don't love you) Hope I could learn more chinese in the long run. Thanks to your videos they're very helpful 💯 Also, aye 6:19 😆
The idea you're talking about near 6:34 in linguistics uses the names "speech time" (you call "the present", which is usually close enough) and "event time". What you call "the point in time that the context shows us" is called "reference time". In English, reference time shows up when you use future perfect tense: "When you read this, your video will have been published for six months". "When you read this" establishes a reference time after my speech (comment) time. The "will" puts the "event" in my future, while "have been" establishes that the event (your video being published) was completed in the past relative to the reference time.
Although I was born, raised and was educated in the United States, learning Chinese has made me more aware of the “mechanics” of the English language (and Spanish). Therefore, although I know of the importance of thinking in the language you are learning, now I know that the sooner I understand the mechanics/grammar, the sooner I will grasp the true meaning and feeling of the language. Thank you for your hard work 😊
There is also another structure for 了: it's called the "double 了" sentence. It's used to describe an action which started in the past and is still in progress at this moment. Example: 我学了两年的汉语了 (I started to study Chinese 2 years ago and I am still studying today).
This is really interesting! English actually also has this concept of completed or incomplete past as well. It’s referred to as “aspect” rather than tense. It’s not as overt as in some languages, but it does exist. For instance in Spanish you have yo sé (“I know”), yo sabía (“I knew” continuously), and yo supe (“I found out”, completed). In English some phrases that show completion or incompletion are not as easy to track grammatically since the term “found out” really means “knew but in a completed moment” but is described using different words. To some extent “was” is like incomplete past. For instance, “I was eating [set up of the story, background, incomplete task] and then all of a sudden a mouse scurried across the floor [completed task in one moment].” But you could also saying, “The mouse was scurrying [incomplete] but then I came in and started to eat” or “.... ate”. And you can also do things like, “I learned”, “I had learned”, “I will have learned by then” etc., which all have different aspects in addition to their tense. Xie xie!
Chinese verbs also show conditional + 2 sorts of, subjunctive verb modes.. These use certain auxiliarynverbs or adverbs. See i, Tuo Kobe. English Subjunctive in Spanish(?or reverse 3 parts in English + Chinese? Powrie, Shawn. Chinese. Counterfactual ...subjunctive +,conditional "(if... then...) section. Zhu, ni, hao yunqi!!
我知道了，谢谢！ Little English tip: "I _hope_ this video will give you an Aha moment" instead of "I wish..." This is pretty subtle. "Wish" can be used with a noun phrase, like "I wish you a Merry Christmas." This is a positive sentiment, like the one you expressed. Or, "wish" can be used with a verb in a hypothetical, like "I wish it were snowing right now," or "I wish I had studied harder," but in these cases it's generally a sentiment of disappointment. "I wish things were different". "Wish" used with a future verb, as you've used it, sounds quite unnatural to my American ears. You could say "I wish it weren't going to rain tomorrow," which is about the future, but still hypothetical and still with the flavor of disappointment. But for a purely positive wish for the future with a verb, use "hope" instead: "I hope it will be sunny tomorrow." And hope also works with nouns, so "I hope for sun" also works. If you want a rule of thumb, I'd use "wish" when you want to imply the wish goes unfulfilled and "hope" when you want to leave that open-ended.
To exemplify the difference of tense and aspect just thing of the following: English has a present tense, and four aspects: Simple 1) I eat; Continuous 2) I am eating; Perfect 3) I have eaten; Combined 4) I have been eating. Move this to any tense (past, future, whatever) it will still be 4 aspects. Aspect is independent from tense. Hopefully this explanation helps...
I still have my Nintendo Donkey Kong 2 ‘game’n’watch’. I’m so happy to learn that it can also function as a time machine. Loved this lesson. Yes, these aspects of time tense logic have often seemed mysterious and almost incomprehensible. This could be a mini revolution in this aspect of my learning, thank you!
I think it is more than just your teacher skills. You truly feel our pain! You are so good at bringing our two "worlds" together! By the way, don't forget that when you say "After I graduate," referring to the future, our word "after" requires us to use the present tense. You inadvertently said "After I graduated" which would only be used for the past tense. "After I watch your video I will enjoy a cup of coffee." Thanks sooo much for your efforts!❤
The use of 了 is similar to verbal "aspect" as opposed to tense - found in the Greek and Russian languages (perfective (completed) and imperfective (not completed) aspects); 了 being more or less a marker for the perfective aspect. There is a book "Biblical Translation in Chinese and Greek: Verbal Aspect in Theory and Practice " By Toshikazu S. Foley (447 pages) which compares meticulously the use of 了, 过 and other Chinese verb markers with Greek verbal aspect system.
Doesn't English also have aspect? I'm pretty sure the perfect and progressive/continuous "tenses" of English are not true tenses, but aspects. Actually, the way she describes "le" makes it seem very similar to the English perfect tense/aspect.
English has aspect! "I eat" simple/habitual aspect, present tense "I am eating" continuous aspect, present tense "I have eaten" completed (perfective) aspect, present tense "I ate" simple aspect, past tense "I was eating" continuous aspect, past tense "I had eaten" completed aspect, past tense "I would eat (every day)" habitual aspect, past tense
Well done! I began my Chinese learning back in 1965, but not all the proper uses of 'le' were covered in the formal schooling [I received] over several years. I had the good fortune to spend time in many places where Chinese (Mandarin) was the main language' thus I learned the proper use. You are 我可敬的老師 ! Thank you 🤠
Yea, although you can say I like this and you will be understood, but what I understood from her video is that we really don't need the ”现在”。。。。 when we say “我知道了” it automatically indicates “现在知道了”，就是说 “我知道了” indicates I didn't know before but now i know; so using 我知道了 makes use of the 了 in the right perspective even without "现在”. 我希望你明白我的意思☺️
Really good! The “past tense” confusion is common when people speaking “tense languages” learn an “aspect language.” As an example, Turkish is very much an aspect language and their (very badly named) “past tense” is much more a perfective aspect, just like “le.” You could translate your “wo zhi dao le” almost exactly into the Turkish “past,” and western languages speakers are left scratching their heads. :-) I wish more Turkish teachers would explain it as clearly as you do!
Much of the material here is attempting to detail perfected aspect which may happen in past, present, or future tense context. 了 is a frequent indication of an action perfected, namely, used as a past event for reference. This is called aspect and is very different to tense yet causes confusion when detailing patterns since the terms overlap.
I have spotted something in 15:01 time-stamp that is the English Language equals: dial or dials; deal or deals! Thank you and good-bye from Sarajevo 🇧🇦!
Wow! Thank you for breaking down the concept of time embedded in English and Chinese grammar like this! As a non-native English speaker, I now also learned from this video why was it so hard for people from my country to learn the whole time-relative grammar in English (past/present/perfect etc etc etc..). Never thought about it before that the way you think about time and describe action in relation to time are different in each culture and language!
Wow I’m glad you recommended us to retrain our brain when it comes to the grammar tenses. I’m a Vietnamese student and I’m learning times/days and after watching your video it occurred to me that we look at the time line as past/present/future. For example i was learning the words “last month/next month”...you’ll need to look up these words in Vietnamese. The point here is the word last reference to the past which is on the left side of the timeline and the word next is on the right side. In Vietnamese the sequence of these words are on opposite sides but the translation comes out to be understood. This got me thinking the concept of 了is totally different from English tenses. I am very intrigued with the concept 了. Thank you for the lecture!
hey loashi i am so happy that i saw your video i am learning chines in china still can not open my mouth to speak a good sentence ..but right now i understand some of the stuff because of your video thanks and keep the video coming ,,,i am so going to watch all the video like your word u need to format your English brain and welcome chinese language in it
wow you are the best!!! This video was so clear, I FINALLY get it now. I was so confused for so long lol Also (as a native English speaker) I learned something new the other day! The grammar pattern that you speak of in this video is called Perfect Tense: Past Perfect Tense, Present Perfect Tense, and Future Perfect Tense 😊
That was helpful. So 毕业以后...= 毕业了...in some situations This makes so much sense why I don’t hear people say 时候, 以后 as much in daily conversation because 了 is more frequently used as in “time + v + 了，我就 + v “
I'm taking an elementary chinese class for now and I have to pass hsk 4 after 1 or 2 years. I've been watching your video and taking notes. Thank you very much! You really help me a lot. You're a good teacher. :3
I'm a Spanish native speaker using English to learn Chinese。I'm really liking the language， though it's really tough！！！还是我很爱你的视频。我很想学汉语！sorry for this crap comment （；-；）
This explanation is amazing. I studied for several years and lived in Taiwan but I have never heard the use of “le” explained so well. I feel like you hacked my English speaking brain and deleted a bad program.
We have a similar prob in Malaysian Chinese dialects. "Lah" is also used in Malay and similar homonyms in Chinese dialects like Cantonese (广东话) or Hokkien (福建花). Depending on contexts, the tones used may change its meaning!
I did heard about this explanation from one of my coworkers before. But at that time, I didn't realize how it really works. As been speaking to Chinese people quite often, Im starting to recognize what you say are right. Usually, I learn speaking Chinese with reflection, but I can see what you said is really correct with what I am supposed to speak in every situation. Thanks a lot for explaining.
@@donaldj.trumpet4205 Yes but a LOT of Chinese teachers think 了 indicates past tense. It probably means they don't understand the difference between the past tense and the present perfect. 我寫完了 does not mean "I wrote". It means "I have finished writing."
Martin Phipps yeah, exactly! I totally agree with you. I’m a Chinese native speaker and I really appreciate that English has categorized tenses in a relatively specific way compared to mandarin (verbs actually have no tense at all). It sometimes makes the language more accurate and simple in my opinion. While in this case Chinese has to rely on some time indicators in discourse when the tense is not present.
In linguistics we have an gramtical category called "aspect" which expresses how an action, event, or state, denoted by a verb, extends over time. I've never seen chinese textbooks using this idea of aspect to teach Chinese for foreigners. You can think of 了 (finished action) as an aspect particle maybe like 着 or 在. In English, we have simple past, past perfect, past progressive for example. The tense are all past, but the action is in different progressions.
The simple past is the simple present in the past time. "I went to school" is the same as " i go to school" just in the past time The present perfekt should be rendered as le and past perfekt as le reffering to completed actions in the past.
Even though your theory is good, i understood it and it did help, there is something that isn't clear. In your example "I got married when i was 20", If i think from perspective of me 20 years ago (as you said, use time machine), then i was getting married and was NOT married. Action was complited only at some point of that year. I didn't understand why did you use 了 there. By this logic both "i had a dog 20 years ago" and "i bought a dog 20 years ago" would be a completed action (lets assume that i already don't have a dog) and the ONLY situation where you wouldn't use 了 is in sentence "when i was buying a dog 20 years ago something happened." Just to make it clear, I understand why 了 used with graduation (because you mentioned something that you will do after you graduate and that implies completing the graduation) but first example is still mysterious.
It marks the Perfective Grammatical Aspect in English it doesn't have a specific markation in english it is part of Simple Past Tense together with the Imperfective Aspect and the Imperfect Aspect while the Perfect Grammatical Aspect is in the Perfect Present Tense and in my language the Perfect Preterite Tense has both Perfective and Perfect Aspect
it seems similar to the pluperfect in english. Saying "we had walked" rather than just "we walked" places the walking at an earlier time than something else being described. Not quite the same but it was the closest thing I could get to understanding a more definite indication of the time/a completed action. Great video :)
English, Chinese, etc both have plus or past perfect and present perfect tenses--- 1 uses 1 le, the other uses 2 le. There are even more websites with text or video that explain these even more complex sides of le. (Aagh!)
@@kevinpan5525 Depends on what other languages you speak, and not least what your native tongue is. If your native tongue is (or if you speak well) eg. a European Indo-European language (like French, German, or Polish), then English will be easier to learn than Chinese. If, however, your native tongue is (or you speak well) eg. some East Asian language either related to, influenced by, or otherwise typologically similar to Chinese (like Burmese, Japanese, or Thai), then Chinese will most likely be much easier to learn than English. I.e., it depends, like everything else in life, "where you're coming from". 🙂
After watching the video I said to myself "For a while, I was confused about things in the future being considered "completed", since there is no way we could know for a fact that they will happen. But I guess it makes sense. After all, the Earth taking a year to orbit the sun is going to have happened". And then I realised what I just said. "Going to have happened". I was referring to something in the future as if it had happened in the past. Tense is very strange! Even in English.
So jiu indicates that something happens early, so this must refer to a time nearer your 20th birthday, when you say about taking the time machine back it must stay there, either when you are 20, because this time will last a year or 1988 to wait for you to be born, you mentioned that using Le at the end emphasised the getting married process and it comes after the object, yet Le at the end of a sentence also indicates a completed action, so as well as used for a completed action it's also used for emphasis.
I'm just starting with my fourth language that is Chinese and I've been watching a lot of TH-cam channels and I didn't know that a Chinese teacher, *just for my own ignorance for sure* could have a lot of charism like you have and make me feel confident with myself , Thank you so much for your work!:)
It sounds like the English perfect tenses (have and had): Ni pang: You are fat Ni pang le: You have fattened "The perfect form is the verb tense used to indicate a completed, or "perfected," action or condition. Verbs can appear in any one of three perfect tenses: present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect. Verbs in the perfect form use a form of "have" or "had" + the past participle." So it's not so different from English. The problem is, lots of teachers don't explain this properly and just say "le" is supposed to indicate the past. Thanks for the very clear explanation!
Oh, I was thinking this, but I don't have the formal grammar words for English. It was the oranges that made me think of it: "I bought three oranges" --in context this is usually clear but out of context it could be at any point in your life. "I have bought three oranges" is more like you're saying "I went to buy oranges and bought three of them" or "I was tasked with buying three oranges and did so"; on the other hand, I'm not sure that people would *use* it a lot in that scenario over the more simple past tense form.
Excellent description of all three usages of 了，particularly the past and future tenses and emphasis, 太好了！Must say I also love the accent, 15:43 "...and don't forget to click the notification bear..." because if you don't, it will chase you down and make you subscribe ^_^
It sounds like the third form of 了 is paralleled in English by the -ed suffix, which is also present in your examples. "I was marri-ed", "I will have graduat-ed in 2025". -ed is used to mean a completed action, regardless of when it happened ("tomorrow after you have complet-ed your report...")
Thank you for taking the time to explain this. It makes a lot more sense. My teachers didn't do the best job explaining it, but then got mad at us because we overused it. Lol.
I didn’t know “le” is this complicated. Your explanation and examples helped a lot. Though it might take time for me to “throw my english brain out” and get used to it 🙂。多谢！
太谢谢了！Your lesson is exactly what I was looking for. Besides, you're speaking so clearly, that even I can understand you without enabling subtitles. (English is not my mother tongue)
as a chinese i really like these videos and every time it recommends me I finish it all 😂 with your examples I can relate to Italian tenses like imperfect which indicates a state in the past and past tense which indicates the completion of an action, and I feel like Chinese is hard because it's less structured (or say more nuanced, when western languages are more logical) btw the concept of "context" is really eye-opening! never thought of it
Hi! As an Italian native I couldn't agree more. My Sichuanese friend (she's great but not very much into studying languages) almost felt offended when I told her that I think 中文 is way more contextual and a less rigid than, say, Italian. I love speaking Mandarin as it throws me completely out of my comfort zone, but in a smooth funny and dynamic way. That feeling of satisfaction when Chinese people say things like "omg I really got everything you said!", which sounds almost ridiculous for us westerners but it's really hard to be understood by natives of a tonal language, well that feeling is what I live for. Bless you and your amazing country.
Ya know, as someone who has studied linguistics, if people just explained 了 in these terms i would have got it in like 10 seconds. But no, they gotta go about explaining it like it's hella complicated, when it's just about open and closed actions, and the time marker itself just marks the point of reference. Ez.
I just followed a few of your Chinese lessons . Your teaching is good ; you explain very well ;thank you Shuo Shuo;I started learning Chinese language one year ago
Thanks for the video. Could you make a video about the usages of 的? I see it a lot.for example "我 是 作 生意 的“？and many other exaples between two names sometimes you use it sometimes not.also for adjectives Thanks
![【Learn Chinese 学汉语]】Difference between 想(xiang) and 要(yao) - Chinese Grammar - HSK Grammar](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MjBzBqdW0ZA/mqdefault.jpg)
![【Learn Chinese 学汉语]】Difference between 想(xiang) and 要(yao) - Chinese Grammar - HSK Grammar](/img/tr.png)
I’m a native Mandarin speaker and I don’t even know most of these rules because they just so instinctive to me! This video is making me appreciate the power of language and how language changes the way we think.
你是中国从哪个地方？
我是中国从广东
@@Bobo-de8zt OK。 你是女人吗？
我也是！从前我从未意识到中文里“了”“就”之类的字的用法如此复杂，因为它们都是生活中最常用的字词。中文虽然没有复杂的词性和时态，但最基础的字词确实不容易用得地道
I had the same epiphany about English. Once I started learning other languages, it opened my eyes to how my own worked on a deeper level
"You need to throw out your brain to understand Chinese"
Challenge accepted.
😂😂😂
说老师，真的谢谢! For me, grasping the concept of 了 I’m completed actions only made sense when I learned French. For example, in French, when talking about the past, there’s usually the completed/perfect past and the imperfect past. The French imperfect past (e.g. Je voulais devenir medecin) is clearer than it’s English counterpart. In English, the translation is: I “wanted” to become a doctor. It’s not really obvious in English whether the verb, wanted, was completed back then. You would need to say things like, “I had wanted”.
TLDR: It’s easy to learn another language such as Mandarin Chinese when you can draw on other languages for reference points.
@@karltorento3358 Did you mean 老實說?
@@karltorento3358 How would you say in French "I had wanted to become a doctor but didn't succeed?"
@@martinphipps2 No, Karl was addressing the video creator by calling her Teacher Shuo; the name goes before the title "Teacher" in Chinese, unlike in English when you put the last name after Mr./M(r)s.
You are a very good Chinese teacher, of you are not already working at a really good institution, you should consider applying, because i can assure you most my Chinese teachers i ever had in person or online could never explain 了 as clearly as you did. I know you said the sole credit is not yours, but you took the time to research a way those who dont speak fluent mandarin could understand.
Stay where you are. Be free. Your methods are perfect.
The exact reason why she can use her own method to expain it so well is that she does not work for any institution and does not have to adjust to any one. She is a creator of her own success , not someone else's :)
I got my "aha" moment thanks to you ^^ not sure I can use it well still but it was really helpful !
I’m agree with you 👍
I am not a native English speaker myself but for some reason when I am listening to you I dont feel any language barrier. I feel like you are talking so clear and understandable. Maybe it is because you are a great teacher :):P Good work keep it up !
Me too
I'm a Japanese learning Chinese. This was one of the most comprehensible videos of 了！！
Yo. Same. I'm also japanese learning chinese. People keep telling me that my japanese is helping me learn chinese. Tbh it really doesn't help to know japanese.
@@FDE-fw1hd I hope someone can teach me Japanese and I teach him Chinese cos I'm Chinese,hahahaha
As a native speaker,I think it's very hard to explain"le" to foreigners,but you do it.I think"le"is more than a past tense,but I can't say its other meanings until I watched this video.你太厉害“了”。
My Chinese is still too basic to understand all of the words you used here, but I think I still totally understood the rules of when to use "le" - thank you for explaining so well!
2 years later, I found your channel and wow you couldn't have explained Le 了 better. With that, I came to realize in one Le 了 use case, we Filipinos have a similar particle in our sentences as well (in this case it's "Na"), which similarly indicates a change of state.
我不爱你'了' Wo Bú Aì Ni 'Le'
"Di 'na' kita mahal"
(base sentence: "Di kita mahal", 我不爱你, I don't love you)
Hope I could learn more chinese in the long run. Thanks to your videos they're very helpful 💯
Also, aye 6:19 😆
The idea you're talking about near 6:34 in linguistics uses the names "speech time" (you call "the present", which is usually close enough) and "event time". What you call "the point in time that the context shows us" is called "reference time". In English, reference time shows up when you use future perfect tense: "When you read this, your video will have been published for six months". "When you read this" establishes a reference time after my speech (comment) time. The "will" puts the "event" in my future, while "have been" establishes that the event (your video being published) was completed in the past relative to the reference time.
Keep all that Reichenbachian stuff away from here man. Most people just want to learn how to use a language, not how to be linguists.
In a word, “了” in Chinese indicates the perfect aspect （完成体）instead of the past tense（过去时）. In Chinese, tenses are indicated by time words.
And the _perfect_ aspect indicates that an action is done. So why does 我太困了 mean "I _am_ sleepy"? That state is still going on.
Emphasising just how sleepy you are, as in, I am too tired!@@xXJ4FARGAMERXx
Although I was born, raised and was educated in the United States, learning Chinese has made me more aware of the “mechanics” of the English language (and Spanish). Therefore, although I know of the importance of thinking in the language you are learning, now I know that the sooner I understand the mechanics/grammar, the sooner I will grasp the true meaning and feeling of the language. Thank you for your hard work 😊
There is also another structure for 了: it's called the "double 了" sentence. It's used to describe an action which started in the past and is still in progress at this moment. Example: 我学了两年的汉语了 (I started to study Chinese 2 years ago and I am still studying today).
But doesn’t it mean a completion of an action?
This is really interesting! English actually also has this concept of completed or incomplete past as well. It’s referred to as “aspect” rather than tense. It’s not as overt as in some languages, but it does exist. For instance in Spanish you have yo sé (“I know”), yo sabía (“I knew” continuously), and yo supe (“I found out”, completed). In English some phrases that show completion or incompletion are not as easy to track grammatically since the term “found out” really means “knew but in a completed moment” but is described using different words.
To some extent “was” is like incomplete past. For instance, “I was eating [set up of the story, background, incomplete task] and then all of a sudden a mouse scurried across the floor [completed task in one moment].” But you could also saying, “The mouse was scurrying [incomplete] but then I came in and started to eat” or “.... ate”.
And you can also do things like, “I learned”, “I had learned”, “I will have learned by then” etc., which all have different aspects in addition to their tense.
Xie xie!
Chinese verbs also show conditional +
2 sorts of, subjunctive verb modes..
These use certain auxiliarynverbs or adverbs.
See
i, Tuo Kobe. English Subjunctive in
Spanish(?or reverse 3 parts in English +
Chinese?
Powrie, Shawn. Chinese. Counterfactual
...subjunctive +,conditional "(if... then...)
section.
Zhu, ni, hao yunqi!!
The time machine concept- brilliant! Thank you!
OMG, you explain the meaning and usage of "了" so well! The time machine concept made for a very clear explanation.
我知道了，谢谢！ Little English tip: "I _hope_ this video will give you an Aha moment" instead of "I wish..." This is pretty subtle.
"Wish" can be used with a noun phrase, like "I wish you a Merry Christmas." This is a positive sentiment, like the one you expressed.
Or, "wish" can be used with a verb in a hypothetical, like "I wish it were snowing right now," or "I wish I had studied harder," but in these cases it's generally a sentiment of disappointment. "I wish things were different".
"Wish" used with a future verb, as you've used it, sounds quite unnatural to my American ears. You could say "I wish it weren't going to rain tomorrow," which is about the future, but still hypothetical and still with the flavor of disappointment. But for a purely positive wish for the future with a verb, use "hope" instead: "I hope it will be sunny tomorrow." And hope also works with nouns, so "I hope for sun" also works.
If you want a rule of thumb, I'd use "wish" when you want to imply the wish goes unfulfilled and "hope" when you want to leave that open-ended.
To exemplify the difference of tense and aspect just thing of the following: English has a present tense, and four aspects: Simple 1) I eat; Continuous 2) I am eating; Perfect 3) I have eaten; Combined 4) I have been eating. Move this to any tense (past, future, whatever) it will still be 4 aspects. Aspect is independent from tense. Hopefully this explanation helps...
这是一个非常有意思的课程。I am Russian and I enjoy both your Chinese and English. Спасибо!
I still have my Nintendo Donkey Kong 2 ‘game’n’watch’. I’m so happy to learn that it can also function as a time machine. Loved this lesson. Yes, these aspects of time tense logic have often seemed mysterious and almost incomprehensible. This could be a mini revolution in this aspect of my learning, thank you!
I think it is more than just your teacher skills. You truly feel our pain! You are so good at bringing our two "worlds" together! By the way, don't forget that when you say "After I graduate," referring to the future, our word "after" requires us to use the present tense. You inadvertently said "After I graduated" which would only be used for the past tense. "After I watch your video I will enjoy a cup of coffee." Thanks sooo much for your efforts!❤
The use of 了 is similar to verbal "aspect" as opposed to tense - found in the Greek and Russian languages (perfective (completed) and imperfective (not completed) aspects); 了 being more or less a marker for the perfective aspect. There is a book "Biblical Translation in Chinese and Greek: Verbal Aspect in Theory and Practice
" By Toshikazu S. Foley (447 pages) which compares meticulously the use of 了, 过 and other Chinese verb markers with Greek verbal aspect system.
Those languages are not the only ones that have aspect.
Doesn't English also have aspect? I'm pretty sure the perfect and progressive/continuous "tenses" of English are not true tenses, but aspects.
Actually, the way she describes "le" makes it seem very similar to the English perfect tense/aspect.
English has aspect!
"I eat" simple/habitual aspect, present tense
"I am eating" continuous aspect, present tense
"I have eaten" completed (perfective) aspect, present tense
"I ate" simple aspect, past tense
"I was eating" continuous aspect, past tense
"I had eaten" completed aspect, past tense
"I would eat (every day)" habitual aspect, past tense
I ve been studing Chinese for six years now and no one has ever told me that, despite the fact that it is suuuper logical!!!! THANK YOU!!!!
Катя Шульгина 🇺🇦💛💙💛💙💛💙
Well done! I began my Chinese learning back in 1965, but not all the proper uses of 'le' were covered in the formal schooling [I received] over several years. I had the good fortune to spend time in many places where Chinese (Mandarin) was the main language' thus I learned the proper use. You are 我可敬的老師 ! Thank you 🤠
Thank you for this thoroughly explained video, this was extremely helpful (and needed). 现在知道了!
Yea, although you can say I like this and you will be understood, but what I understood from her video is that we really don't need the ”现在”。。。。 when we say “我知道了” it automatically indicates “现在知道了”，就是说 “我知道了” indicates I didn't know before but now i know; so using 我知道了 makes use of the 了 in the right perspective even without "现在”. 我希望你明白我的意思☺️
Really good! The “past tense” confusion is common when people speaking “tense languages” learn an “aspect language.” As an example, Turkish is very much an aspect language and their (very badly named) “past tense” is much more a perfective aspect, just like “le.” You could translate your “wo zhi dao le” almost exactly into the Turkish “past,” and western languages speakers are left scratching their heads. :-) I wish more Turkish teachers would explain it as clearly as you do!
Thanks for sharing that! The more we learn! :)
One of the most gorgeous teachers
Much of the material here is attempting to detail perfected aspect which may happen in past, present, or future tense context. 了 is a frequent indication of an action perfected, namely, used as a past event for reference. This is called aspect and is very different to tense yet causes confusion when detailing patterns since the terms overlap.
Yeah I feel like it’s easy to understand bc it’s about perfect aspect. English does have this concept.
我的天， 感谢你录了这个视频。我已经学汉语四年多了，但是我还不明白怎么用“了”。 这个视频太有用了！谢谢！
I have spotted something in 15:01 time-stamp that is the English Language equals: dial or dials; deal or deals!
Thank you and good-bye from Sarajevo 🇧🇦!
But, in another of her learning videos téibei is actually kirby!
Wow! Thank you for breaking down the concept of time embedded in English and Chinese grammar like this! As a non-native English speaker, I now also learned from this video why was it so hard for people from my country to learn the whole time-relative grammar in English (past/present/perfect etc etc etc..). Never thought about it before that the way you think about time and describe action in relation to time are different in each culture and language!
Wow I’m glad you recommended us to retrain our brain when it comes to the grammar tenses. I’m a Vietnamese student and I’m learning times/days and after watching your video it occurred to me that we look at the time line as past/present/future. For example i was learning the words “last month/next month”...you’ll need to look up these words in Vietnamese. The point here is the word last reference to the past which is on the left side of the timeline and the word next is on the right side. In Vietnamese the sequence of these words are on opposite sides but the translation comes out to be understood. This got me thinking the concept of 了is totally different from English tenses. I am very intrigued with the concept 了. Thank you for the lecture!
One of the best explanations of "le' I have heard. You really gave me that "aha" moment!
hey loashi i am so happy that i saw your video i am learning chines in china still can not open my mouth to speak a good sentence ..but right now i understand some of the stuff because of your video thanks and keep the video coming ,,,i am so going to watch all the video like your word u need to format your English brain and welcome chinese language in it
Your lesson made me understand how to use 了 very well.
wow you are the best!!! This video was so clear, I FINALLY get it now. I was so confused for so long lol
Also (as a native English speaker) I learned something new the other day! The grammar pattern that you speak of in this video is called Perfect Tense: Past Perfect Tense, Present Perfect Tense, and Future Perfect Tense 😊
I just love your style of teaching. You made Chinese easier for me. Lots of love from Pakistan
Agreed!! le is very difficult. First time, I think it is "แล้ว" in Thai, but actually it is more complicated than that.
Frienzoned in a chinese class! Achievement unlocked!
It’s the first time I understand 了 perfectly。谢了❤
These were excellent explanations! I especially liked the idea of time travelling for a second judgement. Your teaching style is awsome ❤
2:25 we have this in Spanish 😂😂😂. "Me muero de calor" o "me muero de sueño". It's an intensifier
Many thanks from Korea. I love this lesson. 영상 너무 좋아요!
What a great explanations. I wish you were my Teacher ! 🙏🙏🙏🙏❤
That was helpful. So 毕业以后...= 毕业了...in some situations
This makes so much sense why I don’t hear people say 时候, 以后 as much in daily conversation because 了 is more frequently used as in “time + v + 了，我就 + v “
I'm taking an elementary chinese class for now and I have to pass hsk 4 after 1 or 2 years. I've been watching your video and taking notes. Thank you very much! You really help me a lot. You're a good teacher. :3
Thank you lao shi, you are the best, daily l take a class with you, you are number one, greetings from MX😀👏🏻🤝😀😚
I accept the deal to learn chinese!!!!!
Wow.. After learning Chinese for six years, its impressive to know 了 can be used as a result in the future 😁
never had such a clear explanation
This is the best explanation of 了 I have ever heard. It really did clarify the use for me in a new way.
I'm a Spanish native speaker using English to learn Chinese。I'm really liking the language， though it's really tough！！！还是我很爱你的视频。我很想学汉语！sorry for this crap comment （；-；）
You are great. Taking a page out of your not sounding like a foreigner playbook...”It’s let get started”. Not let’s get it started. :-)
This explanation is amazing. I studied for several years and lived in Taiwan but I have never heard the use of “le” explained so well. I feel like you hacked my English speaking brain and deleted a bad program.
了 is almost identical to แล้ว in Thai. (I think it is even cognate) so it’s really intuitive for me to understand the concept.
We have a similar prob in Malaysian Chinese dialects. "Lah" is also used in Malay and similar homonyms in Chinese dialects like Cantonese (广东话) or Hokkien (福建花). Depending on contexts, the tones used may change its meaning!
I did heard about this explanation from one of my coworkers before. But at that time, I didn't realize how it really works. As been speaking to Chinese people quite often, Im starting to recognize what you say are right.
Usually, I learn speaking Chinese with reflection, but I can see what you said is really correct with what I am supposed to speak in every situation. Thanks a lot for explaining.
Thank you so much for this video. Amazing explanation. First time I actually understood 了.
You know, a lot of Chinese teachers tell me that 了 means past tense and they get angry when I tell them it doesn't.
from my point, mandarin don’t actually have a ‘past tense’ like English does😂
@@donaldj.trumpet4205 Yes but a LOT of Chinese teachers think 了 indicates past tense. It probably means they don't understand the difference between the past tense and the present perfect. 我寫完了 does not mean "I wrote". It means "I have finished writing."
Martin Phipps yeah, exactly! I totally agree with you. I’m a Chinese native speaker and I really appreciate that English has categorized tenses in a relatively specific way compared to mandarin (verbs actually have no tense at all). It sometimes makes the language more accurate and simple in my opinion. While in this case Chinese has to rely on some time indicators in discourse when the tense is not present.
In linguistics we have an gramtical category called "aspect" which expresses how an action, event, or state, denoted by a verb, extends over time. I've never seen chinese textbooks using this idea of aspect to teach Chinese for foreigners. You can think of 了 (finished action) as an aspect particle maybe like 着 or 在. In English, we have simple past, past perfect, past progressive for example. The tense are all past, but the action is in different progressions.
The simple past is the simple present in the past time.
"I went to school" is the same as " i go to school" just in the past time
The present perfekt should be rendered as le and past perfekt as le reffering to completed actions in the past.
Thank you for posting this instructional video Shuoshuo. To be conversant in a second language provides many opportunities.
Very helpful. You explained more about use of le in this short video than three teachers I had over the last few years. And funny Trump joke.
Wow, what a great explanation of how to use 了 I think I can actually start using it correctly now.
very nice. it help me a lot to understand the use of "了"
Even though your theory is good, i understood it and it did help, there is something that isn't clear.
In your example "I got married when i was 20", If i think from perspective of me 20 years ago (as you said, use time machine), then i was getting married and was NOT married. Action was complited only at some point of that year. I didn't understand why did you use 了 there.
By this logic both "i had a dog 20 years ago" and "i bought a dog 20 years ago" would be a completed action (lets assume that i already don't have a dog) and the ONLY situation where you wouldn't use 了 is in sentence "when i was buying a dog 20 years ago something happened."
Just to make it clear, I understand why 了 used with graduation (because you mentioned something that you will do after you graduate and that implies completing the graduation) but first example is still mysterious.
It marks the Perfective Grammatical Aspect in English it doesn't have a specific markation in english it is part of Simple Past Tense together with the Imperfective Aspect and the Imperfect Aspect while the Perfect Grammatical Aspect is in the Perfect Present Tense and in my language the Perfect Preterite Tense has both Perfective and Perfect Aspect
it seems similar to the pluperfect in english. Saying "we had walked" rather than just "we walked" places the walking at an earlier time than something else being described. Not quite the same but it was the closest thing I could get to understanding a more definite indication of the time/a completed action. Great video :)
English, Chinese, etc both have plus or past perfect and present perfect tenses--- 1 uses 1 le, the other uses 2 le. There are even more websites with text or video that explain these even
more complex sides of le. (Aagh!)
06:45 should be “perspective “ not “respective “ apologies!!
LOL you know I heard perspective🤷🏿♂️ I guess it was auto-correct in my brain because I’m English
I assumed you meant with respect to xx time frame, which is still perfect English
这个视频很可能是在TH-cam上最好的解释“了”的！(我看过一些视频啦). 非常谢谢您, 说说老师！辛苦了！👍
Hi! 你什么时候开始学了中文? :) (因为我觉得你说得很棒)
@@elenat1092 好! 哪里， 哪里! 我中文还不够好啊! 我差不多两年以前开始学， 但是没一直学. 很不幸没有时间每天学习。每天学习的话你就真的会有显著提高。加油啊! 👍✌
now i can feel English is much easier than Chinese, 😂
@@kevinpan5525 Depends on what other languages you speak, and not least what your native tongue is. If your native tongue is (or if you speak well) eg. a European Indo-European language (like French, German, or Polish), then English will be easier to learn than Chinese. If, however, your native tongue is (or you speak well) eg. some East Asian language either related to, influenced by, or otherwise typologically similar to Chinese (like Burmese, Japanese, or Thai), then Chinese will most likely be much easier to learn than English. I.e., it depends, like everything else in life, "where you're coming from". 🙂
作为中国人，我觉得你的中文已经很好了，至少我从你的评论中看不出你是外国人，你的中文非常通顺和地道，加油！
Ughh the difference between tense and aspect is absolutely mindboggling. 谢谢您；我还不明白但是你的视频很帮助我！（对不起我的错的中文；我只一个年学习中文。）
Let me help you to correct your words,😊
You want to say?: 谢谢你老师，虽然我不太理解，但是你的视频对我来说很有帮助！(很抱歉，我的中文很差，我只学了一年的中文。)
In Chinese, "although/though" can connect with"but"
关于了的用法，我给我学中文的外国朋友讲了无数次hh我和他们说中文和其他语言不一样就在于中文是一个Analytical Language 完全没有时态、变位和变格。高质量视频，已订阅
After watching the video I said to myself "For a while, I was confused about things in the future being considered "completed", since there is no way we could know for a fact that they will happen. But I guess it makes sense. After all, the Earth taking a year to orbit the sun is going to have happened". And then I realised what I just said. "Going to have happened". I was referring to something in the future as if it had happened in the past.
Tense is very strange! Even in English.
So jiu indicates that something happens early, so this must refer to a time nearer your 20th birthday, when you say about taking the time machine back it must stay there, either when you are 20, because this time will last a year or 1988 to wait for you to be born, you mentioned that using Le at the end emphasised the getting married process and it comes after the object, yet Le at the end of a sentence also indicates a completed action, so as well as used for a completed action it's also used for emphasis.
I'm just starting with my fourth language that is Chinese and I've been watching a lot of TH-cam channels and I didn't know that a Chinese teacher, *just for my own ignorance for sure* could have a lot of charism like you have and make me feel confident with myself , Thank you so much for your work!:)
Awesome video!!!
You are teaching way better than every book I have rad in school over the last 14 years.
谢谢你!
it's really cool and easy way to learn Chinese.im impressed.you are a great teacher
Your lesson is very informative and interesting.
BEST EXPLANATION EVER!!!!
Muchísimas gracias por esta explicación. Además, tu inglés se entiende muy bien. Tus vídeos son realmente instructivos. Sigue así, por favor.
¿estas aprendiendo chino desde inglés????? que bien xd
@@theradiumgirl9298 Sí, los mejores cursos que encuentro online están en inglés, así que no tengo más remedio...
It sounds like the English perfect tenses (have and had):
Ni pang: You are fat
Ni pang le: You have fattened
"The perfect form is the verb tense used to indicate a completed, or "perfected," action or condition. Verbs can appear in any one of three perfect tenses: present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect. Verbs in the perfect form use a form of "have" or "had" + the past participle."
So it's not so different from English. The problem is, lots of teachers don't explain this properly and just say "le" is supposed to indicate the past. Thanks for the very clear explanation!
Oh, I was thinking this, but I don't have the formal grammar words for English. It was the oranges that made me think of it:
"I bought three oranges" --in context this is usually clear but out of context it could be at any point in your life.
"I have bought three oranges" is more like you're saying "I went to buy oranges and bought three of them" or "I was tasked with buying three oranges and did so"; on the other hand, I'm not sure that people would *use* it a lot in that scenario over the more simple past tense form.
🤯 I feel like I did a huge jump on my knowledge today! 谢谢
You're better than my Chinese professor!!!!
Excellent description of all three usages of 了，particularly the past and future tenses and emphasis, 太好了！Must say I also love the accent, 15:43 "...and don't forget to click the notification bear..." because if you don't, it will chase you down and make you subscribe ^_^
literally, the best explanation of the notorious ＂ 了 ＂I've seen! 👏👏🙏
It sounds like the third form of 了 is paralleled in English by the -ed suffix, which is also present in your examples. "I was marri-ed", "I will have graduat-ed in 2025". -ed is used to mean a completed action, regardless of when it happened ("tomorrow after you have complet-ed your report...")
Thank you for taking the time to explain this. It makes a lot more sense. My teachers didn't do the best job explaining it, but then got mad at us because we overused it. Lol.
谢谢老师，我好好懂了，在以前我没明白怎么用【了】不过现在我可以写（用）了更好。
用地更好😏
You’re such a good Chinese teacher!!! Your videos are helping me a lot☺️
I didn’t know “le” is this complicated. Your explanation and examples helped a lot. Though it might take time for me to “throw my english brain out” and get used to it 🙂。多谢！
太谢谢了！Your lesson is exactly what I was looking for. Besides, you're speaking so clearly, that even I can understand you without enabling subtitles. (English is not my mother tongue)
Thank you so much!! I am only a beginner in chinese, but to have this aha-moment so soon will really help me in my chinese learning journey (: 谢谢你！
Best video on 了 on TH-cam! 🥳
Wow you make this grammar so clear, easy and useful. Thanks!
感谢你，老师！这部视频非常非常有帮助！
我很喜欢你的视频，它们非常有趣和有用！加油💪
as a chinese i really like these videos and every time it recommends me I finish it all 😂
with your examples I can relate to Italian tenses like imperfect which indicates a state in the past and past tense which indicates the completion of an action, and I feel like Chinese is hard because it's less structured (or say more nuanced, when western languages are more logical)
btw the concept of "context" is really eye-opening! never thought of it
Hi! As an Italian native I couldn't agree more.
My Sichuanese friend (she's great but not very much into studying languages) almost felt offended when I told her that I think 中文 is way more contextual and a less rigid than, say, Italian.
I love speaking Mandarin as it throws me completely out of my comfort zone, but in a smooth funny and dynamic way.
That feeling of satisfaction when Chinese people say things like "omg I really got everything you said!", which sounds almost ridiculous for us westerners but it's really hard to be understood by natives of a tonal language, well that feeling is what I live for.
Bless you and your amazing country.
Super style to teach Chinese...
Ya know, as someone who has studied linguistics, if people just explained 了 in these terms i would have got it in like 10 seconds. But no, they gotta go about explaining it like it's hella complicated, when it's just about open and closed actions, and the time marker itself just marks the point of reference. Ez.
You are such an amazing teacher.
"'Le' is one of the hardest particles" - 你说得对。
You are an amazing teacher! Thank you so much for your detailed explanation of 了👍
Don't worry too much about it.. it will come instinctively... Listen more,that's all it takes
I just followed a few of your Chinese lessons . Your teaching is good ; you explain very well ;thank you Shuo Shuo;I started learning Chinese language one year ago
Thanks for the video.
Could you make a video about the usages of 的?
I see it a lot.for example "我 是 作 生意 的“？and many other exaples between two names sometimes you use it sometimes not.also for adjectives
Thanks