第二十九天

[nnozomi]

了 to show that an action is complete

https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_completion_with_%22le%22

Guardian:
猫说话了 (the cat spoke)
沈教授，结婚了吗 (Professor Shen, are you married?)
我已经答应了 (I've already given you my word)

My practice:
你太迟到了，我已经吃完了。
我们终于找到了解决。
她上周去了东京。

Comments

[nnozomi]

English doesn't have perfective/imperfective aspects at all,
English does have perfect tenses, which are...not the same thing...I think...but at least related? like, "I finished" (in the past) and "I have finished" (I finished in the past and the state of finishedness remains thus in the present, ie completed or whole, as you put it). Trouble is that the closest Chinese equivalent inside my imperfectly (lol) understanding head is not 了 but 过...

[grayswandir]

Yeah, I definitely associate perfect tense with 过 as well. In my experience it doesn't always work, but it does usually seem like 过 has that sense of "having already done" something. And it's interesting to me how it parallels the connection of "past" and "passed" in English, with 过 as both "passing by/through" and a sense of something already past.

Perfectives are definitely different, but yeah, as a native English speaker who had never even heard of "aspect" at all until I started studying other languages, I'm not sure if I'll ever fully get the hang of the distinction...

[nnozomi]

And it's interesting to me how it parallels the connection of "past" and "passed" in English, with 过 as both "passing by/through" and a sense of something already past.
ooh, that's a very interesting point! Easier to remember, too.