Grammar · Verbs

过 for things you have done before

过 after a verb means you have done it at some point in your life. It is experience, not a finished event.

过 is said with a neutral tone in this job, guo rather than guò, which distinguishes it from the ordinary verb meaning to pass. Unlike 了, it survives the negative: 没去过 keeps the 过, because you are still talking about experience, only the absence of it. The split with 了 lines up with the English difference between went and have been.

Examples