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Difference between 了, 呢 and 来着

When the foreign students learn Chinese online free, they may encounter different kinds of modal particles. As all the foreign students know, the modal particles are used to refer to some certain kind of tone and mood and they are often put in the middle or the end of a sentence. If the modal particles are used in the sentence, it will express some certain emotion of the speakers. The modal particles also act as the indicators of tense. Today we will introduce three modal particles to distinguish the meaning and the usage of the modal particles了,呢and 来着.

In the Chinese learning class, the foreign students can learn that the modal particles了,呢and 来着all refer to the tense in the Chinese language. The means the occurrence of the new condition of the action and the modal particle 来着indicate that the event happens in a few minutes earlier. several sentences will be listed to compare the differences between them. For example, the sentences 下雨呢,下雨了and 下雨来着 express different kinds of meanings. The sentence 下雨呢means that the rain has been raining for a while. The sentence 下雨了means that the it is just starting to rain. The sentence 下雨来着means that it was raining just now but it is not raining at the moment. The foreign students who go to place to learn Chinese should learn the differences between the three modal particles.

Another point the students should pay attention to is that the modal particle word 了and the verb suffix 了have the same form, that is to say, they all use the form of 了in the sentence. For example, in the sentence 我早就报了名了, the first 了is a verb suffix while the latter 了is a modal particle. This kind of structure to use two 了in a sentence means that something has been done till now. for example, the sentence 我在这儿住了五年 only expresses the meaning that someone has the experience that one lived here for five years. however, the sentence我在这儿住了五年了 refers to the meaning that one has lived here for five years by now. The first sentence just relates to the past while the latter refers the past and the present.

When the foreign students learn the modal particles, they should distinguish the difference between the words in different context. The modal particles are not hard if students learn them by memorizing them with different examples.

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