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Completed Actions

Learn how completed events and past states are expressed in Chinese using the aspect particle 了 and time adverbs.

Chinese does not conjugate verbs to show past tense. Instead, completed actions or changes of state are indicated using the aspect particle 了 (le) directly after the verb:

我買了一本書。

I bought a book.

For describing descriptive states in the past (like "I was busy yesterday"), we use time adverbs like 昨天 (yesterday) with a predicative adjective, without adding the verb particle 了.

Practice

Follow along with these examples to strengthen your understanding.

你昨天做了什麼？

What did you do yesterday?

我買了一本書。

I bought a book.

你喝咖啡了嗎？

Did you drink coffee?

我喝了咖啡。

I drank coffee.

你昨天很忙嗎？

Were you busy yesterday?

我昨天很忙。

I was busy yesterday.

你為什麼很忙？

Why were you busy?

我打掃了房間。

I cleaned the room.

你玩了什麼？

What did you play?

我打了網球。

I played tennis.

好玩嗎？

Was it fun?

網球很好玩。

Tennis was fun.

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