▎四字格, sìzìgé, Four-Character Phrases (See 成語chéngyŭ)

▎算了, suànle, forget it, drop it

 

Function Use of the idiomatic pattern 算了 indicates the speaker’s desire to disregard an unpleasant fact.

1 A：你不是要跟女朋友去聽五月天的演唱會嗎？怎麼還在這裡？

Nǐ búshì yào gēn nǚpéngyǒu qù tīng Wǔyuètiān de yǎnchànghuì ma? Zěnme hái zài zhèlǐ?

Aren’t you going with your girlfriend to the May Day concert? Why are you still here?

B：氣死我了。她說要準備明天的報告，不去了。

Qìsǐ wǒ le. Tā shuō yào zhǔnbèi míngtiān de bàogào, bú qù le.

I’m so mad. She said she has to prepare a report for tomorrow, so she’s not going.

A：她不去算了，你不要生氣了。

Tā bú qù suànle, nǐ bú yào shēngqì le.

If she’s not going then just forget about it. Don’t be upset.

2 A：你昨天會計的考試，成績怎麼樣？

Nǐ zuótiān kuàijì de kǎoshì, chéngjī zěnmeyàng?

How did you do on the accounting test yesterday?

B：真不好。算了，算了。今天不說這個。

Zhēn bù hǎo. Suànle, suànle. Jīntiān bù shuō zhè ge.

I did really poorly. Drop it, let’s not talk about it today.

3 A：小王說他對唱歌沒興趣，晚上不去KTV了。

Xiǎo Wáng shuō tā duì chànggē méi xìngqù, wǎnshàng bú qù KTV le.

Xiao Wang says that he’s not a big fan of singing. He’s not going to go to KTV tonight.

B：那就算了。我自己去。

Nà jiù suànle. Wǒ zìjǐ qù.

Then, forget it. I'll go myself.

4 A：沒想到我最喜歡的羊毛外套破了一個大洞。

Méi xiǎngdào wǒ zuì xǐhuān de yángmáo wàitào pòle yí ge dà dòng.

I had no idea that my favorite wool coat would get a big hole in it.

B：既然破了一個大洞，就丟了算了。

Jìrán pòle yí ge dà dòng, jiù diūle suànle.

Since it’s got a big hole in it, just toss it and forget about it.

5 A：我告訴小明炸的東西對身體不好，不要常吃，他總是不聽。

Wǒ gàosù Xiǎomíng zhá de dōngxi duì shēntǐ bù hǎo, bú yào cháng chī, tā zǒngshì bù tīng.

I told Xiaoming that fried food is bad for his health, he shouldn’t eat it so often, but he never listens.

B：他不聽算了，你別難過了。

Tā bù tīng suànle, nǐ bié nánguò le.

If he doesn’t want to listen then just forget it. Don’t be upset about it.

 

Usage Note that 算了 can occur at the very front, in the middle or even at the very end of a sentence. This type of grammatical flexibility is rather rare in modern Chinese.