啦

la / lā
particle HSK 6 #274

Meanings

  1. 1 sentence-final particle (contraction of 了啊)
  2. 2 particle marking each item in a list of examples

Characters

Fusion of 了 and 啊 - adds both completion and exclamation in one syllable.

Examples

HSK 1
Xiàyǔ la!
It's raining!
HSK 3
Kuài zǒu la, yào chídào le!
Hurry up, we're going to be late!
HSK 5
Wǒ zhōngyú cízhí la!
I've finally quit my job!

Tips

grammar
啦 is a fused contraction of 了 + 啊. It carries the changed-state / completed meaning of 了 plus the softening exclamatory tone of 啊. Colloquial, very common in spoken Chinese.
usage
好啦好啦 is the standard way to placate or dismiss - "okay okay, enough". The 1st-tone reading 啦 is a completely different word - onomatopoeia and a dialect verb meaning "to chat" - and lives on its own page.

Components

radical
口 kǒu
mouth
Left indexing mouth radical - flags 啦 as a spoken-sound particle. The 口 radical marks the family of fused sentence-final particles: 啦 (了 + 啊), 喽, 嘛 - all tagged "said aloud".
phonetic
拉 lā
to pull (here phonetic)
Right 拉 supplies the sound: lā loses tone to become toneless la as a particle. Pure phonetic borrowing - the "pull" meaning of 拉 contributes nothing semantic. 啦 is a phonetic spelling of the 了 + 啊 fusion written with this convenient sound-borrowing.

Stroke Order

啦 la