Mandarin · Chapter 14 · Lesson 4 · Grammar primer
Weile purpose clauses
Grammar for HSK 3.
The short version
为了 (wèile) puts the goal before the action
English usually states the action first and tacks the purpose on at the end; Mandarin leads with the goal. 为了健康 (wèi le jiàn kāng),他每天运动 (tā měi tiān yùn dòng) reads literally as 'for the sake of health, he exercises every day' - train yourself to produce that order even though it feels backwards.
为了通过考试,我复习了很多。 Wèile tōngguò kǎoshì, wǒ fùxíle hěn duō.
The 了 (le) inside 为了 (wèi le) never marks a tense
为了 (wèi le) already contains 了 (le), but it is a fixed part of the word, not the aspect particle that marks completion. It stays exactly as written whether the sentence is about the past, present or future - any completion marker the action itself needs attaches to the main verb instead.
为了健康,他去年开始运动。 Wèile jiànkāng, tā qùnián kāishǐ yùndòng.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
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One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 24 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.
Lesson 4 of 14 in this chapter