Example sentences
wǒ我chī吃fàn饭le了。
I've eaten.
tā他zǒu走le了ma吗？
Has he left?
The story behind the character
了
了 marks a change of state: something is now different than it was. 我吃饭了 says the meal is finished. 下雨了 it is raining now, and it wasn't before. 他来了 he has arrived. 太好了 that's great, and it wasn't great a moment ago. The classic learner error is treating 了 as a past tense and sprinkling it on every past sentence. Chinese has no tense. 了 reports that the situation has moved.