嘞

lei

particle #16,175

Meanings

1 sentence-final particle similar to 了, but carrying a tone of approval or cheerfulness

Characters

嘞

lei

(modal particle)

Examples

HSK 1

好嘞，马上就来！

Hǎolei, mǎshàng jiù lái!

Alright, coming right away!

HSK 2

行嘞，就这么办。

Xíng lei, jiù zhème bàn.

Okay then, let's do it that way.

Tips

嘞 is informal and colloquial, commonly heard in northern Chinese dialects. It adds a cheerful, agreeable tone - like saying 'sure thing!' or 'you got it!' It is much more casual than 了.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Mouth radical on the left, the indexing component. It marks 嘞 as a spoken particle - a small noise from the mouth - and groups it with the family of colloquial sentence-end particles: 啊, 呢, 嘛, 啦, 哟. Most modern Chinese tone-particles carry a 口 on the left.

phonetic

勒 lè

to rein in; to carve

Right side 勒 lè supplies the sound with a slight reduction lè → lei (neutral tone, typical of sentence-final particles). The 勒 is purely sound here - no rein-in meaning carries over to the cheerful affirmative particle. Often read with neutral or first tone in different registers.

Stroke Order

嘞 lei

嘞