Mandarin · Chapter 6 · Lesson 2 · Grammar primer
Guo experiential
Grammar for HSK 2.
The short version
过 (guò) survives negation, 了 (le) does not
This is the cleanest test for which particle you are actually holding. 我没去 (wǒ méi qù) means 'I didn't go' on some particular occasion; 我没去过 (wǒ méi qù guò) means 'I have never been'. The 了 (le) vanishes under 没 (méi) while 过 (guò) stays clamped to the verb, and learners model one on the other and lose the 'never'.
我没去过北京 wǒ méi qù guo Běijīng
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.
Read the full article · 11 min readPractice
Practise this lesson
10-question session
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 2 of 8 in this chapter