咯

lo / gē / kǎ
particle #1,976

Meanings

  1. 1 sentence-final particle indicating obviousness or settled change of state
  2. 2 colloquial variant of 了

Examples

HSK 1
Chīfàn lo!
Time to eat!
HSK 1
Xiàyǔ lo!
It's raining!
HSK 2
Hǎo lo, wǒmen zǒu ba.
Alright then, let's go.

Tips

usage
咯 is a southern-flavored colloquial cousin of 了. It signals that something is obvious, has just become so, or is being announced casually. Lighter and more playful than plain 了; common in Cantonese-influenced Mandarin and informal speech everywhere.
mistakes
Only the particle sense is 咯. As an onomatopoeia (咯咯 = cluck/giggle) it reads gē; in the medical compound 咯血 (cough up blood) it reads kǎ. Three different readings, three separate dictionary entries.

Components

radical
口 kǒu
mouth (radical)
Left radical 口 - a small open square marking 咯 as a sound from the mouth. Same indexing radical as other particles and onomatopoeia: 啦, 吗, 呢, 啊.
phonetic
各 gè
each; every (phonetic)
Right phonetic 各 supplies the sound family (gè drifts to lo, gē, and kǎ across the three readings). Same phonetic appears in 路, 客, 络, 落 - all in the gè/luò sound family. The 'each' meaning is not contributed here; 各 is purely phonetic.

Stroke Order

咯 lo