Page 1 - 过 and 了
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过 and 了
The particle 过 (guò) is used to talk about past experiences or past actions in
Chinese grammar. It is placed immediately after the verb to indicate that that
verb was done or experienced in the past. In English, the equivalent would
simply be “have”, e.g. in “I have eaten”, “He has seen it” and so on.
Basic use of 过 for past experiences The most basic structure for 过 is to just
place it immediately after the verb without an object:
Subject +verb+过
w ǒ tīngshuō guò
我 听 说 过。I’ve heard about that.
w ǒ shìguò
我 试过。I’ve tried that.
In each case, the speaker is expressing that they’ve already done an action at
least once before in the past. Using 过 doesn’t give an exact time to the action –
it could have been a long time ago or just a few moments ago.
Using 过 with an object You can also use 过 in sentences with an object. The
structure only gets slightly more complicated – you just put the object right
after 过.
Subject+verb 过 +object
w ǒ y ǐjīng kànguò n à b ù diànyǐng
我 已经 看过 那 部 电 影 。I’ve already seen that film.
n ǐ jiànguò t ā m a
你 见过 他 吗？Have you seen him before?
You could think of the verb and 过 as combining into one unit: the action plus the
aspect (aspect refers to whether or not the action was completed). Then the
object just comes after this unit.
Negating 过 Because 过 is about past actions, you have to use 没有 (méiyǒu)/没
(méi) to negate it. The structure for this is:
