p8nda
p8nda BETA
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呗

唄
bei
particle #5,343

Meanings

  1. 1 (modal particle indicating suggestion or obviousness)
  2. 2 just (do it)

Examples

不想去就别去呗。
Bù xiǎng qù jiù bié qù bei.
If you don't want to go, just don't go.
饿了就吃呗。
È le jiù chī bei.
If you're hungry, just eat.

Tips

grammar
呗 is a colloquial sentence-final particle that suggests something is obvious or simple. It adds a casual, matter-of-fact tone: just do X, or obviously X. It is mainly used in northern Chinese speech.
register
The particle 呗 is very informal; avoid it in formal writing. A separate literary reading, bài, means Buddhist chanting and survives only in the term 梵呗 (Buddhist liturgical chant).

Components

radical
口 kǒu
mouth (radical)
Left mouth radical, the indexing radical, the small 口 (not the big enclosure 囗). The standard marker for spoken-language particles, sound effects, and exclamations. Anchors 呗 alongside 啊, 吧, 呢, 嘛, 啦, every modal-particle character carries this little mouth.
phonetic
贝 bèi
cowrie shell (phonetic)
Right side 贝 supplies the sound, with bèi reduced to neutral-tone bei (sentence-final particles typically lose their tone). Pure phonetic loan; the cowrie-shell-as-money meaning of 贝 is irrelevant here. The mouth plus the bei sound is just the right shape to write down the casual just-do-it ending tag in spoken Mandarin.

Stroke Order

呗 bei