@sylviogh - sorry for that, the podcast is up now. A late night oversight....

the dialog mp3 - unavailable/no permission?

whats the gramatical function of "le" in this sentence, is it a change of state?

I usually translate 了, mentally, as 'has/have', since that's how the English perfective aspect is constructed. It's just a matter of figuring out where to fit it. In this one, it's something like "It has come time to get out of bed."

@Xiao Hu

Really, this 了 is working the same way 了 always does. In the first sentence it is applied to the verb 得 (dei3) and in the second it is applied to 必须 (bi4xu1). These verbs are put into the perfective by 了, so it's like "it has come that you must get up".

@Everybody else,

Is what I have said right? That this 了 is technically working the same way it always does? It seems that way to me.

@Palafx,

Thanks for the explanation. What I've noticed of 了 is that in some ways it works similarly to the English perfective form, in other ways it doesn't, especially when it indicates a change of state.

Textbooks refer to the usage of 了 as:

1- Indicating an action has been completed

2- Indicating a change of state

The thing that's confusing about it is that no native English speaker would ever say, "It has come time that you must to get out of bed", you'd just say "You need to get out of bed" or "You have to get out of bed". In fact, you wouldn't say “你必须起床的时候来了”in Chinese either, so there's something unspoken or implied going on in the verbage, so what is that?

The other aspect is that the listener has not yet risen from bed, however he should or will rise in the future, so what the 了 seems to be referring to is a previous state and highlighting a contrast between the previous state and the new one.

Besides that, 了 should modify main verbs, not auxilliarly verbs, since the main verb is the only one that indicates and action that could potentially be completed.

Of course, in some ways you can equate 了 to "already", as in, "It's time for you to get up already." Perhaps that's an easy way to understand the function of 了 here?

@Brendan

Sometimes I feel like the contrast drawn between the supposed two functions of 了 is one invented to explain it to speakers of non-aspect-oriented languages. I'm not saying it isn't a good explanation, just that when I hear it I sorta plug my ears and go "LA LA LA LA" until it goes away.

@Xiao Hu,

对。

其实那个句子一般我们不说“发现在路上死了”，我们说“发现死在路上了”，这个“了”是change of state。

这个“了”中国人想起来都头疼，用法多不说，还有许多特例，没办法，慢慢就好了。

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

Seriously - if you ever want about a year's worth of free entertainment (for certain values of "entertainment"), try reading some of the technical literature about 了. It really is a question of 语感: even native speakers will start second-guessing themselves once they pause to think about certain points of usage.

In general -- and I hope this doesn't sound condescending, because I certainly don't mean it as such -- I think you're probably at the point in your studies where you should focus more on fostering that 语感 -- which it seems you've already got -- than on trying to analyze sentences on the per-word level. Stuff like 了 (or 总 or whatever) often doesn't really contribute anything in a literal English translation of a given sentence; ditto 已经 etc. Yes, the basic meaning of 已经 is "already," but as often as not in actual usage, it's being used simply to indicate that a verb took place in the past. 了 can mean "already" in certain circumstances, and can be used to indicate what we as English speakers would consider the past tense in other circumstances, but most of the time -- as here -- it's indicating a change of state, which is something really quite different from the tense systems we're familiar with.

It takes a while to get used to this, but it's an almost unbelievably elegant, powerful, and flexible thing once you can use it (not that I'm some kind of master of 了 myself or anything). Just think about the differences between "下雨" "要下雨," "要下雨了," “下雨了," and “下了雨." The flexibility and economy - and elegance - of those constructions still blows me away every time I think about it.

@Xiao Hu -- Sorry; didn't mean to come off sounding snotty in that last comment. This does make for a nice example of when to use 了 -- in these sentences, you might think of it corresponding to the English "now" in something like "It's time to get up now" or "it's raining now." (Or, I guess, "it's about to rain now?" I dunno; that sounds slightly weird to me in English...) In general, any sort of English sentence where you might use "now" in this way will be a 了 opportunity in Chinese.

@Xiao Hu -- Yeah; for 了 (unlike most other things, I think) the only solution beyond a certain point is immersion. The only comfort, I guess, is that native speakers will argue over usage if you draw their attention to it: nobody really understands how it works.

And I think 《春天不是读书天》 would be an excellent Film Friday candidate. I'm not sure if there's a dubbed version floating around out there, but I've definitely seen versions with Chinese subtitles.

@Jade30x,

Welcome to Popup Chinese!

Like orbital said, "你必须剪头发了“ is the best expression. "你必须剪头发了，要不然你就不能去面试。“

”要不然“ is more colloquial than "否则“.

@orbital,

剪发 is too formal and a bit old fashioned. 剪头发 is better.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

Can you please shed some light on the differences between 須／须 and 需? The dictionaries on my phone give two verbs with the pinyin spelling of xūyào. For example, the ABC dictionary (in Pleco) gives:

須要／须要：AUX. must; have to

需要：AUX. need; want; require; demand

Since these dictionaries never give any indication of the frequency of use of the words they list, it seems to me that when I hear someone say xūyào, it could mean just about any of the different variations that you discuss in the lesson (well, only "ought to" is missing).

While I am at it, I had a milder version of the same problem with the "The Wire" podcast from last October and bìxū as an adjective. All my dictionaries give 必須 as the adverb and 必需 as the adjective, but at least the meaning seems to be the same.

@Echo - Thank you.

So I guess I can almost treat xūyào like one of those English words that in more than 99% of cases are used with a "generic" meaning but every now and then someone will use with a specific, technical meaning (like, say, "decimate"). Just have to remain open for the possibility.

The 必须/必需 distinction is one that confused me in the "Wire" podcast. I should have asked the question back when I was working on that lesson.

Otherwise, I have almost caught up with you on the Elementary lessons. When that happens I will "graduate" myself to mostly-Intermediate level and will start working my way systematically through that pile of lessons. So you can expect questions from me soon on some really old intermediate-level stuff :-)

@MattJelly,

Considering the advice is coming from a 老外 I suppose you should take it with a grain of salt, but to the best of my knowledge, here 应该 is something like the meaning of "probably", like "I probably caught a cold".

However, it's probably better to wait for the authoritative voice of Echo老师, before filing this one away.

Thanks very much guys

:)