咗

zuǒ

particle

Meanings

1 (Cantonese) aspect particle marking a completed action, equivalent to Mandarin 了 or 过

Characters

咗

zuǒ

(Cantonese) completed-action particle

Examples

HSK 7-9

粤语的“我食咗饭”，就是普通话的“我吃了饭”。

Yuèyǔ de " ngo⁵ sik⁶ zo² faan⁶ ", jiùshì pǔtōnghuà de " wǒ chī le fàn ".

Cantonese 我食咗饭 is Mandarin 我吃了饭, 'I have eaten'.

Tips

usage

This is a Cantonese-only character used in writing spoken Cantonese. It follows a verb to mark completed action, doing the job that 了 or 过 does in Mandarin. In Cantonese it is pronounced zo²; the Mandarin reading zuǒ is rarely heard since the word is not used in Mandarin.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Mouth radical on the left. As with most spoken-Cantonese characters, the mouth radical signals that this is a colloquial speech word created to write a sound, not a classical word. Same family as the particles 啦 and 喇.

phonetic

左 zuǒ

left

Right side 左 supplies the sound (Cantonese 'zo2', Mandarin zuǒ). It contributes no 'left' meaning; the character is purely a phonetic spelling of a Cantonese grammatical particle.

No stroke data for 咗; the glyph shown is your device font, so component strokes can't be highlighted.

Stroke Order

咗 zuǒ

咗