la /
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 and - adds both completion and exclamation in one syllable.

Examples

HSK 1
Xiàyǔ la!
It's raining!
HSK 4
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
is a fused contraction of + . It carries the changed-state / completed meaning of plus the softening exclamatory tone of . Colloquial, very common in spoken Chinese.
usage
is the standard way to placate or dismiss - "okay okay, enough". The 1st-tone reading is a completely different word - onomatopoeia and a dialect verb meaning "to chat" - and lives on its own page.

Components

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

Stroke Order

la