Kilo Lingo

该

gāi

Traditional: 該

HSK 3
#197 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

should, ought to (colloquial)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 该

该

Examples

。

You should leave now.

。

It's your turn.

。

This should not have happened.

。

You should go to bed earlier.

轮lún。

Now it's my turn.

该 (gāi) means should, ought to (colloquial). It is used as a verb in everyday Mandarin speech.

Related words

必须

must, have to

可

may, can, to approve

要

to want; will; need to

应该

should, ought to, must

只要

as long as, provided that, if only

Appears in 3 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 该.

应该yīng gāishould, ought to, must该死gāi sǐdamn it, dammit (mild expletive)不该bù gāishould not, ought not to

Used in

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This word is part of lesson 4.